- Person
- Rosalyn Yalow
- Lived
- 1921–2011
- Field
- Medical Physics
- From
- American
The story
Blood transfusions save lives, but they can also pass on infections from donor to patient, including the viruses that cause hepatitis, a serious disease of the liver. Making transfusions safe requires tests sensitive enough to find extremely small quantities of viral material in a blood donation before it reaches a patient.
Radioimmunoassay provided that sensitivity. Rosalyn Yalow, a nuclear physicist, developed the technique with the physician Solomon Berson at the Bronx Veterans Administration Hospital in the 1950s, originally to measure insulin in the blood of people with diabetes. The method uses antibodies, which recognise one specific substance, together with a radioactive tracer. A known amount of the radioactively labelled substance competes with the same substance in a sample for a limited number of antibody binding sites, so measuring the radioactivity reveals how much was present, even at minute levels. Yalow dated the era of RIA to 1959.
Because it could measure a vast range of substances found in tiny quantities in body fluids, including viruses, drugs and hormones, the technique made it possible to screen donated blood for various types of hepatitis. The same approach could identify hormone-related health problems, detect some cancers and foreign substances in the blood, and measure whether doses of antibiotics and other drugs were effective.
The Jewish Women's Archive notes that RIA can be used on humans, animals or plants and is sensitive enough to measure almost any trace material. Its applications spread far beyond the hormone research for which Yalow and Berson first developed it, which is why the technique came to be used in thousands of laboratories in the United States and abroad. Yalow and Berson chose not to patent it, which helped it spread freely. In 1977 Yalow received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for its development.
Later antibody-based tests such as ELISA, which work without radioactivity, rest on similar principles. Screening the blood supply is now standard practice: the World Health Organization recommends that all donated blood be tested for infections including hepatitis B and hepatitis C, as well as HIV and syphilis.
Why it matters
Screening blood made transfusions much safer for patients undergoing surgery, childbirth and treatment for injuries and disease.
About Rosalyn Yalow
Co-developed radioimmunoassay; the second woman ever to win the Nobel Prize in Medicine (1977).
More about Rosalyn Yalow
- Rosalyn Yalow co-invented radioimmunoassayRosalyn Yalow and Solomon Berson developed radioimmunoassay, a technique using radioactive tracers to measure tiny amounts of hormones and other substances in blood.
- Rosalyn Yalow was the only woman among 400 at IllinoisWhen Rosalyn Yalow began graduate study at the University of Illinois engineering college in the 1940s, she was the only woman among 400 members, and the first since 1917.
- Rosalyn Yalow refused to patent radioimmunoassayDespite its huge commercial potential, Rosalyn Yalow and Solomon Berson refused to patent radioimmunoassay, so laboratories everywhere could use it freely.
- Yalow's test helps diagnose thyroid problems in newbornsRosalyn Yalow's radioimmunoassay was used to diagnose underactive thyroid glands early in babies, allowing treatment that prevents intellectual disabilities.
- Rosalyn Yalow urged the world to use women's talentsAt the 1977 Nobel festivities, Rosalyn Yalow said the world cannot afford to lose the talents of half its people if it is to solve its many problems.
Sources
- Rosalyn Sussman Yalow Wikipedia
- Rosalyn Yalow Jewish Women's Archive
- Radioimmunoassay Wikipedia
- Blood transfusion Wikipedia
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