Mildred Cohn

Mildred Cohn (July 12, 1913 – October 12, 2009) was an American biochemist who furthered understanding of biochemical processes through her study of chemical reactions within animal cells. She was a pioneer in the use of nuclear magnetic resonance for studying enzyme reactions, particularly reactions of adenosine triphosphate (ATP).

She received the nation's highest science award, the National Medal of Science, in 1982, and was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

Early life Cohn's parents, childhood sweethearts Isidore Cohn and Bertha Klein Cohn,

Education Cohn graduated from high school at 14. She went on to attend Hunter College, which was both free and open to all qualified women, irrespective of race, religion or ethnic background. She received her Bachelor's cum laude in 1931. Originally, Cohn was working to study the different isotopes of carbon. However, her equipment failed her, and she could not finish this project. She went on to write her dissertation on oxygen isotopes and earned her PhD in physical chemistry in 1938.

Career

With Urey's recommendation, Cohn was able to obtain a position as a research associate in the laboratory of Vincent du Vigneaud at the George Washington University Medical School in Washington, D.C.. There Cohn conducted post-doctoral studies on sulfur amino acid metabolism using radioactive sulfur isotopes. Cohn pioneered the use of isotopic tracers to examine the metabolism of sulfur-containing compounds. When du Vigneaud moved his laboratory to Cornell University Medical College in New York City, Cohn and her new husband, physicist Henry Primakoff, moved to New York as well.

In 1946, Henry Primakoff was offered a faculty appointment at Washington University School of Medicine. Cohn was able to obtain a research position with Carl and Gerty Cori in their biochemistry laboratory in the university's school of medicine. In 1971, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. In 1982, she retired from the faculty as the Benjamin Rush Professor Emerita of Physiological Chemistry.

In the course of her career, Mildren Cohn worked with four Nobel laureates, who received three Nobel prizes: Harold Urey, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1934 Vincent du Vigneaud, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1955

Achievements

Cohn wrote 160 papers, mostly on her primary research subject of using nuclear magnetic resonance to study ATP. She received a number of honorary doctorates.

She won the American Chemical Society's Garvan-Olin Medal in 1963. In 1968, she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was awarded the Franklin Institute's Elliott Cresson Medal in 1975, for her work on nuclear magnetic resonance analysis of enzymatic complexes. She received the International Organization of Women Biochemists Award in 1979.

She was presented with the National Medal of Science by President Ronald Reagan in 1983 for 'pioneering the use of stable isotopic tracers and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy in the study of the mechanisms of enzymatic catalysis'.

During her career, Cohn achieved several gender firsts: She was the first woman to be appointed to the editorial board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, where she served as editor from 1958–63 and from 1968–73. She was also the first woman to become president of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, then called the American Society of Biological Chemists (serving as such from 1978 to 1979), and the first woman career investigator for the American Heart Association.

Marriage Mildred Cohn was married to physicist Henry Primakoff from 1938 until his death in 1983. They had three children, all of whom earned doctorates. Mildren Cohn is quoted in Elga Wasserman's book, The Door in the Dream: Conversations With Eminent Women in Science, as saying “My greatest piece of luck was marrying Henry Primakoff, an excellent scientist who treated me as an intellectual equal and always assumed that I should pursue a scientific career and behaved accordingly.”

Partial bibliography