Gerty Cori *1896–1957

Biochemist Gerty Theresa Cori was born into a wealthy Jewish family in Prague in 1896. She completed her medical studies at the German University in Prague in 1920 and married fellow student Carl Cori. She received medical training at a pediatric clinic in Vienna until the couple emigrated to the United States in 1922 in response to increasing anti-Semitism in the city. Carl took up a biochemical research posi-tion at a research institute in Buffalo while Gerty analyzed routine tests as her request to participate in Carl’s research was dismissed. However, together the  cou ple performed research on carbohydrate metabolism. In 1929, they described the Cori cycle, the metabolic pathway in which lactate, produced by anaerobic glycol ysis in muscles, is transported to the liver and converted to glucose. This dis-covery led to the couple being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1947. In 1931, they transferred to Washington University, Gerty as an underpaid research assistant, her husband as head of the pharmacology department. Together they discovered the Cori ester and its catalyzing enzyme. She also per-formed successful research into glycogen storage diseases. Her achievements were financially acknowledged in 1947, when she was offered a chair in biochemistry. She was also awarded five honorary doctorates and won several scientific prizes. In 1957 she succumbed to myelofibrosis, which had been diagnosed a decade  earlier.