Salome Gluecksohn-Waelsch (October 6, 1907 – November 7, 2007) was a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

-born

U.S. The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...

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 process ...

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 ...

, 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 lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

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 flu pandemic, also known as the Great Influenza epidemic or by the common misnomer Spanish flu, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 subtype of the influenza A virus. The earliest document ...

, severe post-war inflation, and intense anti-Semitic sentiment.

Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie (born March 22, 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 Colle ...

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, ...

, eds., ''The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: Pioneering Lives From Ancient Times to the Mid-20th Century'', 2000. She studied

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

and

zoology Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the anatomy, structure, embryology, Biological classification, classification, Ethology, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinction, extinct, and ...

Königsberg Königsberg (; ; ; ; ; ; , ) is the historic Germany, German and Prussian name of the city now called Kaliningrad, Russia. The city was founded in 1255 on the site of the small Old Prussians, Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teuton ...

and

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

before she joined Spemann's laboratory at the

University of Freiburg The University of Freiburg (colloquially ), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (), is a public university, public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The university was founded in 1 ...

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 ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

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 t ...

. In the same year she married the biochemist Rudolph Schönheimer, with whom she escaped from

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

in 1933. She went on to become a lecturer at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

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 or viral replication, ...

s that affected early development and discover the processes that these genes affected. In 1938, she acquired

US citizenship Citizenship of the United States is a legal status that entails Americans with specific rights, duties, protections, and benefits in the United States. It serves as a foundation of fundamental rights derived from and protected by the Constitu ...

, 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 morphology concerned with the study of the internal 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 scien ...

at the newly founded

Albert Einstein College of Medicine The Albert Einstein College of Medicine is a Private university, private medical school in New York City. Founded in 1953, Einstein is an independent degree-granting institution within the Montefiore Einstein Health System. Einstein hosts Doc ...

(AECOM), where she became a full professor in 1958 and held the chair of molecular genetics from 1963 to 1976. She received

emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

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 (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

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 The mesoderm is the middle layer of the three germ layers that develops during gastrulation in the very early development of the embryo of most animals. The outer layer is the ectoderm, and the inner layer is the endoderm.Langman's Medical ...

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

mammal A mammal () is a vertebrate animal of the Class (biology), class Mammalia (). Mammals are characterised by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands for feeding their young, a broad neocortex region of the brain, fur or hair, and three ...

ian 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 has two meanings. The Mendelian gene is a basic unit of heredity. The molecular gene is a sequence of nucleotides in DNA that is transcribed to produce a functional RNA. There are two types of molecular genes: protei ...

of the mouse caused the aberrant development of the posterior portion of the

embryo An embryo ( ) is the initial stage of development for a multicellular organism. In organisms that reproduce sexually, embryonic development is the part of the life cycle that begins just after fertilization of the female egg cell by the male sp ...

and she traced the effects of this mutant gene to the

notochord The notochord is an elastic, rod-like structure found in chordates. In vertebrates the notochord is an embryonic structure that disintegrates, as the vertebrae develop, to become the nucleus pulposus in the intervertebral discs of the verteb ...

, which normally patterns the dorsal-ventral axis. From 1968 to 1983 she collaborated with

Carl Ferdinand Cori Carl Ferdinand Cori, ForMemRS (December 5, 1896 – October 20, 1984) was a Czech-American biochemist and pharmacologist. He, together with his wife Gerty Cori and Argentine physiologist Bernardo Houssay, received a Nobel Prize in 1947 for th ...

, 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, acco ...

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 The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

. She was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) 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, and other ...

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 and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...

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 science, behavior ...

. 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 w ...

for "a lifetime contribution to the science of genetics" in 1999. In 2010, the

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau or simply Freiburg is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fourth-largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Its built-up area has a population of abou ...

-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>

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 corporation, multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, academic journals, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanit ...

. * Gilbert, S.F., 2006. ''Developmental Biology''. Massachusetts: Sinauer. * Scott F. Gilbert
Biography of Salome Gluecksohn-Waelsch
Jewish Women Encyclopedia
Life, work and photo

from

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 scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Pri ...

website {{DEFAULTSORT:Gluecksohn-Waelsch, Salome 20th-century German biologists 20th-century American biologists 20th-century American women scientists American women biologists German geneticists American geneticists Jewish German scientists Jewish American scientists Columbia University faculty Yeshiva University faculty National Medal of Science laureates Foreign members of the Royal Society Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences American women centenarians Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States Scientists from Gdańsk People from West Prussia 1907 births 2007 deaths American women academics 20th-century American Jews 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American women Jewish centenarians

Biography

Scientific career

Awards and honors

See also

References

Further research