Salome Gluecksohn-Waelsch (October 6, 1907 – November 7, 2007) was a
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
-born
U.S.
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
geneticist
A geneticist is a biologist or physician who studies genetics, the science of genes, heredity, and variation of organisms. A geneticist can be employed as a scientist or a lecturer. Geneticists may perform general research on genetic processes ...
and co-founder of the field of
developmental genetics
Developmental biology is the study of the process by which animals and plants grow and develop. Developmental biology also encompasses the biology of regeneration, asexual reproduction, metamorphosis, and the growth and differentiation of stem c ...
, which investigates the genetic mechanisms of development.
[Scott Gilbert]
"Salome Gluecksohn Waelsch"
''Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia''
Biography
Gluecksohn-Waelsch was born in
Danzig,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
to Nadia and Ilya Gluecksohn. She grew up in Germany between World War I and II, where her family faced hardships including her father's death in the
1918 influenza epidemic
The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was ...
, severe post-war inflation, and intense anti-Semitic sentiment.
Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie
Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie (born 1936) is an American historian of science known especially for her work on the history of women in science. She taught at Oklahoma Baptist University before becoming curator of the History of Science Collections and ...
and Joy Dorothy Harvey
Joy Dorothy Harvey (born 1934) is an American historian of science.
Life
Harvey gained a PhD from Harvard University in 1983. She has been an associate editor of the Darwin Correspondence Project, and written a biography of Clémence Royer, Dar ...
, eds., ''The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: Pioneering Lives From Ancient Times to the Mid-20th Century'', 2000.
She studied
chemistry and
zoology
Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and ...
in
Königsberg
Königsberg (, ) was the historic Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was name ...
and
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
before she joined
Spemann's laboratory at the
University of Freiburg
The University of Freiburg (colloquially german: Uni Freiburg), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (german: Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg), is a public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemb ...
in 1928. She commented on both Spemann's nationalist tendencies and prejudice against women scientists; prejudices she faced as a Jewish woman limited her career options in Germany.
Salome started to quietly disagree with Spemann as him and his peers believed adamantly that there was no overlap in genetics and embryonic development. However, it would have not been wise to go against her professor at that time so she kept quiet until later on in her professional career.
In 1932 she received her
doctorate
A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''li ...
from the University of Freiburg
for her work on the embryological limb development of aquatic
salamanders
Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by their lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All ten ...
. In the same year she married the biochemist
Rudolph Schönheimer, with whom she escaped from
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
in 1933.
She went on to become a lecturer at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
in 1936, bringing embryological acumen to
Leslie C. Dunn's genetics laboratory, where she remained for 17 years.
Gluecksohn-Waelsch attempted to find
mutation
In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA replication, DNA or viral repl ...
s that affected early development and discover the processes that these genes affected.
In 1938, she acquired
US citizenship, and after Schönheimer's death in 1941 she married the neurochemist
Heinrich Waelsch in 1943, with whom she had two children.
Columbia University's policies would not allow her a faculty position, even after many productive years of research.
She left Columbia University in 1953 to commence a professorship in
anatomy
Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having it ...
at the newly founded
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Albert Einstein College of Medicine is a research-intensive medical school located in the Morris Park neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City. Founded in 1953, Einstein operates as an independent degree-granting institution as part of t ...
(AECOM), where she became a full professor in 1958 and held the chair of molecular genetics from 1963 to 1976.
She received
emeritus status in 1978, but continued researching actively for many more years, publishing and participating in scientific conferences until the 1990s.
She died a month after her 100th birthday in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
.
Scientific career
Gluecksohn-Waelsch's scientific career started when L.C. Dunn hired her to his project involving breeding mice with a 'T locus' mutation.
She presented her work showing that the T-locus product acted as an inducer of
mesoderm and axial development.
Gluecksohn-Waelsch worked on the genetics of
differentiation, the process by which unspecified cells from a fertilized egg adopt their various specific fates in development. As Gluecksohn-Waelsch combined the embryological expertise she had acquired at Spemann's lab with methods of classical mouse genetics, she is considered the founder of
mammalian developmental genetics. She co-authored over 100 publications on developmental genetics.
Her research showed that mutations in the ''Brachyury''
gene
In biology, the word gene (from , ; "... Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a b ...
of the mouse caused the aberrant development of the posterior portion of the
embryo and she traced the effects of this mutant gene to the
notochord, which normally patterns the dorsal-ventral axis.
From 1968 to 1983 she collaborated with
Carl Ferdinand Cori, winner of the 1947
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, accord ...
.
Awards and honors
Gluecksohn-Waelsch's scientific work was honored late in life. In 1979, she became a member of the
National Academy of Sciences. She was elected a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
in 1980.
In 1982 the University of Freiburg her with the "Goldene Promotion", and in 1993 American president
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
presented her with the
National Medal of Science
The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social scienc ...
. She became an overseas member of the
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
in 1995 and was awarded the
Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal
The Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal is awarded by the Genetics Society of America (GSA) for lifetime contributions to the field of genetics.
The medal is named after Thomas Hunt Morgan, the 1933 Nobel Prize winner, who received this award for his work wi ...
for "a lifetime contribution to the science of genetics" in 1999.
In 2010, the
Freiburg
Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...
-based
Spemann Graduate School of Biology and Medicine (SGBM) and the AECOM Department of Genetics introduced the Salome Gluecksohn-Waelsch Prize for the best dissertation.
[Salome Gluecksohn-Waelsch Preis erstmals vergeben (Universität Freiburg, German]
/ref>
See also
* Hilde Mangold
*Conrad Waddington
Conrad Hal Waddington (8 November 1905 – 26 September 1975) was a British developmental biologist, paleontologist, geneticist, embryologist and philosopher who laid the foundations for systems biology, epigenetics, and evolutionary devel ...
References
Further research
* Hyman, P.E./ Moore, D.D., eds. 1998. ''Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia''. New York: Routledge
Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law ...
.
* Gilbert, S.F., 2006. ''Developmental Biology''. Massachusetts: Sinauer.
* Scott F. Gilbert
Biography of Salome Gluecksohn-Waelsch
Jewish Women Encyclopedia
Life, work and photo
from Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
On The Shoulders of Giants: John Wheeler and Salome Waelsch obituary podcast transcript
from Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gluecksohn-Waelsch, Salome
20th-century German biologists
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Columbia University faculty
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National Medal of Science laureates
Foreign Members of the Royal Society
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
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American centenarians
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Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States
Scientists from Gdańsk
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1907 births
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American women academics
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21st-century American women