Rebecca Lancefield

Rebecca Craighill Lancefield (January 5, 1895 – March 3, 1981) was an American microbiologist. She joined the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now Rockefeller University) in New York in 1918, and was associated with that institute throughout her career. Her bibliography comprises more than 50 publications published over 60 years.

Lancefield is best known for her serological classification of β-hemolytic streptococcal bacteria, Lancefield grouping, which is based on the carbohydrate composition of bacterial antigens found on their cell walls. She is also responsible for the serological typing of group A streptococci.

Early life and education Lancefield was born at Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island, New York. Her father was an officer in the US Army Engineer Corps. She attended Wellesley College in Massachusetts. After graduating in 1916 with a degree in zoology, she taught math and science at a girls school in Vermont for one year. Lancefield received her master's degree from Columbia in 1918. The same year, she married Donald E. Lancefield, a fellow graduate student in genetics at Columbia. After graduation, she worked as a technician for Oswald Avery and Alphonse Dochez at Rockefeller. The following year, she returned to Columbia to study on Drosophila willistoni under Charles W. Metz.

Career and research Lancefield's first co-authored paper was published in 1919 when she was a technician, an unusual recognition at the time. Previous to this work, researchers did not know if different streptococcal strains were biologically distinct. Working with Avery and Dochez, she identified four serological types that classified 70 percent of the β-hemolytic streptococcal strains they were studying. Therefore, the majority of her work was carried out at Rockefeller, where Swift's lab was located. At the time, viridans streptococci were incorrectly believed to contribute to rheumatic fever. Lancefield's thesis work helped dispel this idea. Lancefield discovered that the group-specific antigen of streptococci was composed of carbohydrates, which she named the C-carbohydrate. Within this discovery, Lancefield revealed that the C-carbohydrate was not species-specific, as originally thought.

Due to Lancefield's willingness to answer microbiological questions, her lab at Rockefeller earned the nickname "the Scotland Yard of streptococcal mysteries."