February and March are all about honoring women! 11th of February was the International Day of Women and Girls in Science and on the 8th of March, it is International Women’s Day. So what a great opportunity to remember some of the most important women scientists who changed the face of reproductive medicine.
1. Miriam Menkin. She was the first person to successfully fertilize a human egg in vitro. It all started when John Rock, a doctor in obstetrics and gynecology, started an infertility clinic in 1926 to help people who couldn’t conceive. In the 1930s, he heard about the successful fertilization experiments that Harvard scientist Gregory Pincus had performed in rabbits and saw an opportunity. If in vitro fertilization (IVF) could be performed in humans, the fallopian tubes could be bypassed. In 1938 he hired Miriam Menkin, who had worked as a lab technician for Pincus, and the two of them began to research if IVF was possible in humans. Miriam -when younger- dreamt to become a doctor but she became a technician and helped her husband be a doctor instead. The two of them worked together in the lab, while she was taking courses in bacteriology and embryology. Interesting fact, although she was extremely intelligent she was rejected from two medical schools, and while she blamed her personality, it was actually because of her gender..
In February 1944, Rock and Menkin’s prayers were finally answered. She let the sperm in the petri dish stay in contact with the egg for much longer than usual. To her surprise, this time the egg was successfully fertilized and Menkin witnessed the first conception ever to occur outside the human body. She then repeated the experiment successfully three times between February and April and photographed the fertilized eggs. They only let their fertilized eggs develop for a couple of days, and they made no attempt to transplant the eggs back into a woman’s body. Still though, their discoveries held great promise for future medicine.
After her divorce from her husband, Miriam devoted her life to her two children and returned to work with Rock who now had a mission of developing a convenient method of contraception, an undertaking that would lead to the historic approval of the pill for contraceptive use in 1960.
Miriam managed to fulfill her destiny and become the first woman scientist who solved the scientific riddle of fertilization outside the womb. For her, in vitro work represented the chance to be a part of a larger scientific project. For all of us it was the beginning of a new era in reproduction.
2. Jean Purdy. She was one of the three scientists whose groundbreaking work led to the birth of the first IVF baby, Louise Brown, in 1978. The other two scientists were Dr. Patrick Steptoe and Dr. Robert Edwards who won the Nobel Prize for their achievement in 2010. As you may have noticed, only the two men won the Nobel and not Jean. Jean was the nurse and embryologist who assisted the two doctors and played an essential role in the medical discovery. Ms. Purdy traveled with Dr. Edwards for a decade in Oldham, so they could work on developing the IVF technique with Dr. Steptoe. According to news reports, she co-authored more than 25 papers with the two doctors and co-founded the Bourn Hall Clinic in Cambridge, which served as one of the world’s first IVF centers. And because of her specialty as embryologist, she was the very first who saw the cells dividing in the embryo that would become Louise Brown. Under her tenure, 370 babies were conceived using assisted reproduction. Despite her great achievements she wasn’t honored and recognized as she should. Although her fellow coworker Dr. Edwards was opposed to not including her at the awards, she was excluded by all mainly because of her gender and her profession. Being a nurse at that time didn’t have the same gravity as being a doctor or a scientist. Many years later, after Jean’s death, the award for the MRes Reproductive Science and Women’s Health was named after her.
3. Ruth Fowler. Granddaughter of Earnest Rutherford, famous chemist and Nobelist, studied biology and genetics. Fowler and her husband Bob Edwards wrote about ways to increase the number of synchronized eggs recoverable from adult female mice through a series of five papers, on the control of ovulation induced by the use of exogenous hormones. This feat of hers helped debunk the common misconception that superovulation of adults was not possible. She also published papers about the growth of human embryos in the laboratory, the genetics of early human development and on progesterone, protein composition of the uterine fluids of the rabbit and the importance in understanding the environment experienced by the preimplantation embryo. And all that, while being a mother of 5 children! She gave her life to science and reproductive medicine and deserved more recognition while still alive.
4. Joanne Richards. Luckily for us a researcher, and not a teacher as she was willing to be. Joanne thought she was going to be a teacher when she “stumbled” upon research and PhDs. In particular, she researched the areas of the ovaries, ovarian hormones, and receptors. Her studies on the LH control of ovulation and cumulus cell-oocyte complex expansion led to the identification of the complex interactions that control ovulation. This in turn eventually provided the first model of ovarian surface epithelial cancer. Subsequently, Joanne’s group clarified the importance of normal theca cell function in premature ovarian failure, polycystic ovarian syndrome, and ovarian hyperthesosis.
5. Teresa Woodruff. She is Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at Michigan State University, and also an MSU Foundation Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Biology, and the Department of Biomedical Engineering. She spent most of her research years on ovarian follicles. She has used a highly innovative and cross-disciplinary approach including material science, chemistry, bioengineering, and engineering in her research, to great effect. She developed a successful three-dimensional system for ovarian culture in alginate in vitro. This made follicle maturation in vitro in an artificial ovary possible and provided the answers to many otherwise intractable questions. Then, using inorganic chemistry, she discovered the critical role of zinc fluxes in the process of meiotic maturation.
These are not the only women who helped in reproductive science. There are many more and hopefully, there will be many more in the future. As we go back in history, we see a disappointing pattern of women not taking credit for their valuable work. That is why we now have to honor them and acknowledge their value. Fortunately, women now stand more equally next to men, and they are more appreciated and heard. For all we know, behind every successful man, Nobelist or not, is always an equally successful woman and history in the Greek language is a feminine noun 😉
MEDIPASS honors all women and that is why our main purpose is to help them achieve their goals. We are proudly a FemTech company and together we will transform the fertility journey.
We're Here To Help You
Fill in the form to receive more information about doctor and treatments
