GERTYCORI
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1947
© Bernard Becker Medical Library Washington, University School of Medicine
Gerty Cori uncovered the process of cellular energy storage and release, answering one of the most fundamental questions about how the human body works. In so doing, she and her husband and lifelong research partner, Carl, transformed the study of biology, proving that the clarity of molecular chemistry could and should be applied to the opaque mechanisms of biology.
Photomicrograph of glucose-1-phosphate crystals, by Carl and Gerty Cori, 1947 © Becker Medical Library, Washington University School of Medicine
Gerty Cori was born Gerty Theresa Radnitz in 1896 to a wealthy Jewish family in Prague. She found an early backer in the form of her uncle, a paediatrics professor, who supported her interest in maths and science and encouraged her to apply to medical school. The university permitted women to attend, but since girls' schools did not offer Latin, maths, physics, or chemistry, few could pass the entrance exam.
Women at the Washington School of Medicine, June 1939. Gerty Cori is standing, fifth from the right. She was working as a research associate in pharmacology at the time. © Gerty T. Cori Papers, Bernard Becker Medical Library Archives, Washington University School of Medicine.
Cori spent a year cramming for what she later called “the hardest examination I was ever called upon to take,” and enrolled in medical school in 1914, at the age of 18.
In medical school, Cori found her life’s passions: biochemistry and Carl Cori. She and Carl met in anatomy class and became inseparable, studying, hiking, skiing, and researching together. They married right after Cori received her degree, at age 24.
Gerty and Carl Cori in their laboratory at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, 1947 © Becker Medical Library, Washington University School of Medicine
But that otherwise triumphant time in their lives was troubled by politics. It was 1920, Eastern Europe was still recovering from the war and anti-Semitism was on the rise. Although Cori had converted in order to marry Carl, her Jewish ancestry still posed a risk to the young couple – to their careers, if not to their lives.
Gerty and Carl Cori © Becker Medical Library, Washington University School of Medicine
The Coris left Europe in 1922 for the safety and prosperity of the United States. Carl was hired to run the lab at the State Institute for the Study of Malignant Disease, in Buffalo, New York, and got his wife a job there as an assistant pathologist. In America, the Coris found a thriving scientific community. They became citizens in 1928.
I believe the benefits of two civilizations – a European education followed by the freedom and opportunities of this country – have been essential to whatever contributions I have been able to make to science.
GERTY CORI
Although the Coris were always equals in the lab, they were not treated as equals. After eight years in Buffalo, where they published 50 papers together, they sought a place better suited to their research. But few institutions would hire Gerty, despite her accomplishments, and those that did would not give her equal status or pay.
Gerty and Carl Cori in their laboratory at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, 1947 © U.S National Library of Medicine
In Buffalo, Carl Cori ran the pathology lab and Gerty Cori was a pathology assistant. When he became a professor at the Washington University School of Medicine in 1931, she became a research associate. Sixteen years later (and two months after receiving the Nobel Prize), Gerty was finally promoted to the rank of professor.
The Coris researched carbohydrate metabolism, ultimately uncovering the process by which glucose is metabolised in the human body. In 1929 they described the Cori cycle, the basic cellular process in which the body stores sugar in muscle cells as glycogen, sends it to the liver for processing into a usable form, and then sends it back to muscles as glucose.
Although it’s the Cori cycle that bears their name, one of their subsequent achievements had an even greater impact. It was at Washington University in St. Louis, where they had moved in 1931. There, the couple continued their studies into the breakdown of glycogen, and after several years of testing identified the enzyme that initiates decomposition into glucose. Then they reversed that enzymatic decomposition process to create glycogen in a test tube, thus pioneering a method of doing biochemical research in a controlled environment outside of living cells.
Carl Dauten (right), President of the Washington University Men's Faculty Club, presents a scroll to three of the university's four Nobel Laureates: Joseph Erlanger (far left), 1944 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, and Carl and Gerty Cori, 1947 Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine © Becker Medical Library, Washington University School of Medicine
Gerty and Carl Cori at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony at the Stockholm Concert Hall, 10 December 1947 U.S National Library of Medicine, Images from the History of Medicine Collection, Photographer unknown, Kindly provided by National Library of Medicine
Carl Dauten (right), President of the Washington University Men's Faculty Club, presents a scroll to three of the university's four Nobel Laureates: Joseph Erlanger (far left), 1944 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, and Carl and Gerty Cori, 1947 Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine © Becker Medical Library, Washington University School of Medicine
Gerty and Carl Cori at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony at the Stockholm Concert Hall, 10 December 1947 U.S National Library of Medicine, Images from the History of Medicine Collection, Photographer unknown, Kindly provided by National Library of Medicine
Gerty Cori and her husband, Carl, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1947; she was the first woman to do so.
The unforgotten moments of my life are those rare ones which come after years of plodding work, when the veil over nature’s secret seems suddenly to lift, and when what was dark and chaotic appears in a clear and beautiful light and pattern.
GERTY CORI
(Image ) Gerty Cori © Becker Medical Library, Washington University School of Medicine (Audio) "Gerty Cori recorded on Edward R. Murrow's "This I Believe" radio show, 2 September 1952." © Digital Collections and Archives, Tufts University
Gerty Cori, one of twelve distinguished women awarded an honorary degree from Smith College on its 75th anniversary. © Alfred Eisenstaedt / The LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images
After receiving the prize, and, at last, a professorship, Cori continued to delve into the metabolic process, discovering new enzymes, the ubiquity of enzymatic functions, and the enzyme deficiency at the heart of several diseases.
A letter from Gerty Cori to biochemist Herman Kalckar, 12 July 1957 © Gerty T. Cori Papers, Bernard Becker Medical Library Archives, Washington University School of Medicine.
A letter from Gerty Cori to biochemist Herman Kalckar, 12 July 1957 © Gerty T. Cori Papers, Bernard Becker Medical Library Archives, Washington University School of Medicine.
Her final ten years were productive, but difficult, as she succumbed to myelofibrosis, a bone marrow disease that necessitated surgeries, blood transfusions, and ultimately help just getting from room to room. Cori died in 1957 at the age of 61, grateful for her life in science.
