Lina Stern

Lina Solomonovna Stern or Shtern (; 26 August 1878 – 7 March 1968) was a Soviet biochemist, physiologist and humanist whose medical discoveries saved thousands of lives at the fronts of World War II. She is best known for her pioneering work on the blood–brain barrier, which she described as hemato-encephalic barrier in 1921. This was the start of Stern’s lifelong research into the cerebrospinal fluid. Her research led her to groundbreaking conclusions about the blood-brain barrier. In 1943 she won the Stalin Prize.

Defeat of the Anti-Fascist Committee

She was accused of cosmopolitanism and admiration for the West by the Soviet government in 1948. Her Institute in Moscow was closed. Stern was arrested in 1949 by the Ministry of State Security (MGB) and interrogated by the head of MGB Viktor Abakumov.

The Soviet government decided to eradicate the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC) in the late 1940s as an anti-Soviet organization. A member of the Antifascist Committee of Soviet Women and the JAC since the outbreak of World War II, Stern was the sole survivor out of 15 arrested and convicted to death sentence when the JAC was eradicated in January 1949. Her death sentence was changed to a prison term by Joseph Stalin, followed by five-year exile.

Life after exile After Stalin's death in 1953, life became easier. She returned from exile to Moscow. Stern continued to research for blood–brain barrier. Finally, she was exonerated by the Presidium in 1958.

Lina Stern died on March 7, 1968.

Research on the blood–brain barrier The blood–brain barrier refers to a diffusion barrier formed by the endothelial walls of the blood vessels and capillaries in the brain. This barrier prevents most substances in the blood from entering the brain while allowing small molecules like oxygen and carbon dioxide to diffuse freely. While working at the University of Geneva, Stern published a series of studies demonstrating the existence of the blood-brain barrier with colleague Raymond Gautier. Beginning in 1918, the two performed systematic experiments on the movement of various substances from the blood into the nervous system and estimated the extent to which these substances were able to permeate the brain. From these studies they were able to conclude that there exists a barrier between the blood and brain, which they termed in French "barrière hématoencéphalique". In a 1934 paper, Stern also independently introduced the notions of barrier selectivity and barrier resistance, realizing that the blood–brain barrier both selectively allows certain substances to enter the brain and protects the internal milieu of the brain from that of the blood. Today these are acknowledged as two of the main functions of the blood–brain barrier.