Ruth Sager

Ruth Sager (1918-1997) pioneered the now-thriving field of “cytoplasmic genetics” but it took decades before her theories were accepted. Sager was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1918. She received a degree in mammalian physiology from the University of Chicago in 1938, followed by a master’s degree in plant physiology from Rutger’s University in 1944...

Louise Chow

You might have heard about the molecular imaging technique cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) because of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics. This WiSE Wednesday we’d like to tell you another story involving a Nobel Prize and electron microscopy (though not the cryo kind). In many ways, this story has striking resemblance to a more well-known...

Martha Chase

If you hear “Hershey” and think “Chase,” not “chocolate,” you might be a scientist. My hope is that, after reading this article, you hear “Hershey” and think “Martha Chase!” You might have learned about the “Hershey-Chase experiment” in a biology class (the elegant experiment that showed that genetic information is stored in nucleic acids...

Mildred Cohn

Mildred Cohn (1913-2009) developed methods to track the movement of atoms within cells and was the first female president of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB). I was thrilled when I learned that the professor whose lab I’m in, Dr. Leemor Joshua Tor, was awarded the ASBMB's 2018 Mildred Cohn Award...

Caroline Dean

Cellular and developmental biologist Caroline Dean studies the genetic and epigenetic mechanisms by which external temperature regulates the timing of plant reproduction, a topic that’s increasingly relevant as global climate change affects crop production. Her work has led to important insights into chromatin regulation and evolutionary adaptation in a variety of species. This special...

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