Rosalyn Sussman Yalow

A Ph. D. in Physical Sciences in 1945 from the University of Illinois, she was the only woman in a department of 400.

She moved to the Bronx Veterans Hospital (New York) to set up the radioisotope service and there, together with Solomon Berson, she developed the radioimmunoessay, a very sensitive method to determine small amounts of circulating hormones, initially insulin, enzymes and vitamins.

They never wanted to patent her invention and Berson passed away in 1972, so he could not receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine which, in 1997, Yalow shared with R. Guillemin and A. V. Schally.