31 Days of Notable Women- Marie Curie, famous firsts

Marie Curie, née Maria Sklodowska, was born in Warsaw on November 7, 1867, the daughter of a secondary-school teacher. She received a general education in local schools and some scientific training from her father. She became involved in a students’ revolutionary organization and found it prudent to leave Warsaw, then in the part of Poland dominated by Russia, for Cracow, which at that time was under Austrian rule. In 1891, she went to Paris to continue her studies at the Sorbonne where she obtained Licenciateships in Physics and the Mathematical Sciences.

She met Pierre Curie, Professor in the School of Physics in 1894 and in the following year they were married. She succeeded her husband as Head of the Physics Laboratory at the Sorbonne, gained her Doctor of Science degree in 1903, and following the tragic death of Pierre Curie in 1906, she took his place as Professor of General Physics in the Faculty of Sciences, the first time a woman had held this position. She was also appointed Director of the Curie Laboratory in the Radium Institute of the University of Paris, founded in 1914.

Source Cited: From Nobel Lectures, Physics 1901-1921, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1967

MLA style: “Marie Curie – Biography”. Nobelprize.org. 12 Aug 2010 http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1903/marie-curie-bio.html

Professor Yonath won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry-31 Days of Notable Women

Professor Ada Yonath is The Martin S. and Helen Kimmel Professor of Structural Biology and Director of The Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Center for Biomolecular Structure and Assembly. She, along with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas A Steitz, were recognized for “studies of the structure and function of the ribosome,” work that will impact the development of antibiotics. In 2009 Prof. Yonath won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for deciphering the structure and mechanism of action of ribosomes – the cell’s protein factories. Her findings are crucial for developing advanced antibiotics.

Source Cited: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Israel+beyond+politics/Prof_Yonath_2009_Nobel_Prize_Chemistry_7-Oct-2009.htm

Meet Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi

Nobel Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi went on trial while in prison in Burma, May 21, 2009. As a pro-democracy campaigner and leader of the opposition National League for Democracy party (NLD), she has spent more than 11 of the past 19 years in some form of detention under Burma’s military regime. In 1991 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to bring democracy to Burma.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1950505.stm

Gabriela Mistral- First Latin American woman who won the Nobel Prize for Literature

Gabriela Mistral was the first female Latin American poet to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. She received it in 1945 “for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world” – Nobel Citation

Gabriela Mistral was the pseudonym for Lucila Godoy y Alcayaga. Her personal life was marked with tragedy. She was born in Vicuna, Chile in 1889 but her father left the family when she was only 3. By the age of 16 she was supporting her mother by working as a teacher’s aide. In 1906 she met Romeo Ureta, who became the great love of her life. Some of her best known poems include: Piececitos de Niño, Balada, Todas Íbamos a ser Reinas, La Oración de la Maestra, El Ángel Guardián, Decálogo del Artista and La Flor del Aire.
As well as being a poet Gabriela played an important role in the educational systems of Mexico and Chile, was active in cultural committees of the League of Nations, and was Chilean consul in Naples, Madrid, and Lisbon. She held honorary degrees from the Universities of Florence and Guatemala and was an honorary member of various cultural societies in Chile as well as in the United States, Spain, and Cuba.

Source Cited: http://www.poetseers.org/nobel_prize_for_literature/gab/

Dr Carol Greider- Nobel Laureate for Cancer Research

Dr Carol Greider- Nobel Laureate for Cancer Research

Dr. Carol Greider is the Daniel Nathans Professor & Director Molecular Biology & Genetics, Johns Hopkins University. Together with Dr. Jack Szostak, Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, they have made major breakthroughs in cancer research. She and Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, received the 2009 Nobel Laureate in medicine.

Source cited: http://www2.mdanderson.org/cancerwise/2010/02/elizabeth-blackburn-a-scientific-rock-star.html

Nobel Prize winner in medicine- Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn

Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn is the Morris Herztein Professor of Biology and Physiology in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, received the 2009 Nobel Laureate in medicine, she shares the Nobel Prize with Dr. Carol Greider, who was a graduate student in her lab in the mid 1980s.

Source cited: http://www2.mdanderson.org/cancerwise/2010/02/elizabeth-blackburn-a-scientific-rock-star.html

Nobel Prize winner in Literature, Herta Muller

The celebration of one literary laureate kicked off when the Swedish Academy in Stockholm awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature to German-Romanian Herta Muller October 8, 2009. Herta Muller, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, has amassed an impressive, moving, body of work.

Source: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2009/bio-bibl.html

Thirty Days of Notable Women- Gerty T. Cori- Nobel Prize in Medicine

 

Gerty Theresa Cori (1896-1957) Gerty Theresa Cori was an American biochemist, born in 1896, who teamed up with her husband and a co-worker (Bernardo Houssay) to discover a phosphate-containing form of the simple sugar glucose. Its universal importance to carbohydrate metabolism led to an understanding of hormonal influence on the conversion of sugars and starches in the animal organism. Their studies dealt with the catalytic conversion of glycerin (the process whereby glycogen, a form of stored energy, is broken down into sugar, then turned back into glycogen.) Their discoveries earned them the Nobel Prize for Physiology/Medicine in 1947. Source Cited-

http://www.nobel-winners.com/Medicine/carl_and_gerty_cori.html

Blessed Be this Spring Equinox,

To The Dance!