ROSALYN YALOW

YALOW--Rosalyn, PhD. We at The Mount Sinai Medical Center are deeply saddened by the passing of our dear friend and longtime colleague, Rosalyn Yalow, PhD, Distinguished Service Professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and recipient of the 1977 Nobel Prize. She was the second woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Dr. Yalow was the first physics major at Hunter College and later became the sole woman at the University of Illinois College of Engineering, earning both her master's and PhD degrees there. She was an investigator at the Radioisotope Unit at the Bronx VA Hospital, a Mount Sinai affiliate, from 1947 until 1980, and she served as Senior Medical Investigator there starting in 1972. In 1968, she was also appointed Research Professor in the Department of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital and later she became the Solomon Berson Distinguished Professor at Large, a position she held until her death. Together with Solomon Berson, MD, who was also an outstanding clinician-scientist at Mount Sinai, Dr. Yalow postulated the presence of, and went on to demonstrate, insulin-binding antibodies in insulin-treated patients. The collaborators then revolutionized medical science, especially endocrinology and metabolism, by developing the radioimmunoassay in 1959, first of insulin and later of growth hormone, ACTH, parathormone, and gastrin. It is this body of work that led to the Nobel Prize. Dr. Berson died in 1972. During her distinguished career, Dr. Yalow also received many other honors, including the AMA Scientific Achievement Award, the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, and the National Medal of Science. The Mount Sinai community extends its condolences to Dr. Yalow's family and friends. Peter W. May, Chairman, The Mount Sinai Boards of Trustees; Kenneth L. Davis, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Mount Sinai Medical Center; Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz, Dean of Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at The Mount Sinai Medical Center