Antimicrobials are critical in the fight against infectious diseases in humans and animals. The development of antimicrobials hit its peak during the mid-20th century, with penicillin being first administered to humans in 1941, and the "golden age" of antibiotic discovery taking off with the discovery of streptomycin in the 1940's. Since that time, antimicrobial compounds have saved the lives of countless people around the world, extending the average human lifespan by 23 years. From drug development to determining the mechanisms of drug resistance, numerous women researchers have been critical in the fight against infectious diseases within the human population. The women highlighted here are inspiring not only for their major contributions to science, but also for the barriers they broke as women in STEM careers, as well as their advocacy for women and other marginalized groups in science and health care.
Mattiedna Johnson (1918-2003)
Mattiedna Johnson was born in 1918 to sharecroppers in Mississippi. After completing her medical education and training, Johnson embarked on a career as a nurse and laboratory technician.
Johnson first worked as a lab technician in the plant pathology department at the University of Minnesota, where she focused on penicillin research. Her work involved isolating molds from various foods and testing their antibacterial activity. During this time, she discovered a strain of mold in tomato soup that showed promise in killing Streptococcus pyogenes, the bacterium responsible for strep throat and scarlet fever. Sharing these results with her colleagues, Johnson recommended preparing this medication with peppermint-flavored syrup for babies and children. Years later, Pfizer introduced Terramycin syrup, which was prepared with peppermint syrup for taste. Johnson believed that this medicine was based on her mold research performed at the University of Minnesota. While Pfizer acknowledges Johnson's role in penicillin research, the origins of Terramycin syrup remain disputed.
In addition to her work as a researcher, Johnson was a staunch advocate for health equity for Black Americans. To address issues of underrepresentation in the nursing field and other Black health care concerns, she founded the National Black Nurses Association (NBNA) and the Cleveland Council of Black Nurses. She also implemented community blood pressure screenings in the greater Cleveland area.
Margaret Hutchinson Rousseau (1910-2000)
Margaret Hutchinson Rousseau was born in 1910 in Houston. She earned her bachelor's degree from Rice University and her Sc.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), becoming the first woman in the U.S. to receive a doctorate in chemical engineering. After completing her education, Rousseau worked as a chemical engineer, where she developed processes for producing synthetic rubber and distilling oil for jet fuel.
During World War II, the mass production of penicillin was still in its infancy, and there were significant challenges in scaling up the yield. Leveraging her chemical engineering experience, Rousseau collaborated with Pfizer to develop deep fermentation tanks for cultivating the penicillin-producing mold. This fermentation process allowed for the large-scale commercial production of penicillin, increasing the availability of the drug to the public. Rousseau continued her work as a chemical engineer until retiring in 1961.
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910-1994) and Barbara Low (1920-2019)
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin was another key figure in the development of penicillin. She was born in 1910 in Cairo, Egypt. In 1937, she earned her Ph.D. from Cambridge University for her research using X-ray crystallography to determine the structure of steroid molecules.
Hodgkin experienced chronic illness throughout her lifetime, having developed rheumatoid arthritis in her late 20s during her Ph.D. studies. Despite the challenges her chronic illness posed in operating her X-ray equipment, Hodgkin had a prolific career as an X-ray crystallographer.
During World War II, Hodgkin and her graduate student, Barbara Low, used X-ray crystallography to reveal the structure of penicillin. This knowledge allowed for the synthesis of penicillin and its derivatives in the laboratory instead of relying on mold for penicillin production. In 1964, Hodgkin was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her work in determining the structures of important biochemical substances-including penicillin-using X-ray techniques. She also received other prestigious honors, including being elected as a fellow of the Royal Society in 1947, receiving the Royal Medal in 1956 and the Order of Merit in 1965.
Low went on to become a professor at Harvard University and, later, at Columbia University. Her academic career included research on the structures of insulin and neurotoxins. At Columbia, Low was a strong advocate for increasing diversity within the academic community and was elected to the American Academy of Sciences in 1953.
Jane Hinton (1919-2003)
Jane Hinton was born in 1919. In 1939, Hinton earned her bachelor's degree from Simmons College. After graduation, she worked alongside her father, William Hinton (who was a bacteriologist and professor at Harvard University) and Professor John Mueller in their laboratories at Harvard. Together with Mueller, she developed Mueller-Hinton agar, which has become 1 of the standardized methods for assessing the effectiveness of antibiotics against bacteria. Later, she received her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) from the University of Pennsylvania, becoming 1 of the first 2 Black women to earn their DVM. After completing her degree, Hinton studied disease outbreaks in livestock animals at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The Rutgers Scientists Researching Streptomycin
Rutgers University professor Selman Waksman won the 1952 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology for the discovery of streptomycin, the first antibiotic to be effective against tuberculosis. The patent for streptomycin production was awarded to Waksman and his graduate student Albert Schatz. Yet, several women researchers in the Waksman lab at Rutgers, including Elizabeth Bugie, Elizabeth Schwebel Horning, Doris Jones Ralston, Hilda Christine Reilly and Doris Hutchinson, were also crucial to the success of this research and have received significantly less recognition for their work.
Elizabeth Bugie (1920-2001)
Notably, Waksman's master's student Elizabeth Bugie was the middle author (alongside Waksman and Schatz) on the paper that announced the discovery of streptomycin. This authorship is indicative of Bugie's significant contribution to the project.
Elizabeth Schwebel Horning (1904-2000)
Elizabeth Horning was a Ph.D. student in the Waksman lab, performing her dissertation research on the development of a new protocol to accelerate the isolation and screening of soil microorganisms for antibiotic discovery. Using Horning's protocol, Schatz successfully isolated and screened 2 strains of the bacterium Streptomyces griseus for the ability to produce antibiotic compounds. Identification of these antibiotic-producing S. griseus strains was the first step in the discovery of novel antibiotic compounds, like streptomycin, for fighting bacterial disease.
Doris Jones Ralston (1921-2011)
Doris Jones performed her master's thesis work in the Waksman lab after Horning. Jones studied the microbiota found in the throats of healthy chickens and discovered a community of microorganisms that appeared to be capable of producing antibiotic compounds. She shared these microorganisms with fellow graduate student Schatz, who isolated a streptomycin-producing strain of S. griseus. Jones also demonstrated the effectiveness of streptomycin against Shigella gallinarum, which causes disease in poultry, and assessed its toxicity in chicks.
After leaving Rutgers, Jones earned her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, where she continued as an immunology researcher.
Hilda Christine Reilly (1920-1989)
Hilda Reilly, a Ph.D. student in the Waksman group, also worked closely with Schatz on the characterization of streptomycin. The pair studied streptomycin metabolism and resistance. After leaving Rutgers, Reilly became a faculty member at Cornell-Sloan Kettering before returning to her alma mater, Douglass College (later to become part of Rutgers), where she became the chair of the department of bacteriology.
Doris Hutchinson (1918-2007)
Doris Hutchinson, another Ph.D. student in the Waksman lab, also studied streptomycin resistance and tried to find an alternative to combat resistant strains. In addition, she conducted research on the antibiotic neomycin. After leaving Rutgers, Hutchinson, like Reilly, became a faculty member at Cornell-Sloan Kettering.
Ann Bishop (1899-1990)
While pursuing her bachelor's degree at Manchester University, Ann Bishop discovered her love for parasitic protozoology, which led her to switch to the zoology program. She completed an M.S. and Ph.D., conducting research on the model protist Spirostomum for both degrees.
After finishing her Ph.D., Bishop joined the Molteno Institute for Parasitology in Cambridge, where she would spend the rest of her career, eventually being appointed as director. While at the Molteno Institute, Bishop carried out testing of novel antimalarial compounds. Her work was essential to the British war efforts during World War II, as the Japanese capture of the Duth East Indies (the modern state of Indonesia) resulted in a shortage of quinine, an antimalarial drug.
Additionally, Bishop worked to improve model systems for studying malarial infection and conducted extensive research on drug resistance in Plasmodium, the causative agent of malaria. In recognition of her numerous scientific contributions, she was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society in 1959.
Mildred Rebstock (1919-2011)
Mildred Rebstock grew up in Elkhart, Ind., playing with chemistry sets in the basement of her house with her younger siblings. Rebstock earned a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Illinois in 1945. After completing her education, Rebstock started working as a research chemist at the pharmaceutical company Parke-Davis. Her initial work involved synthesizing new antibiotics from the naturally-occurring antibiotic streptomycin.
During this time, scientists discovered that the antibiotic chloramphenicol is also produced by soil bacterium belonging to the Streptomyces genus (initially isolated from S. venezuelae in 1948). Parke-Davis aimed to produce chloramphenicol on a large scale by synthesizing the compound entirely in the lab, rather than relying on bacteria to produce it. However, initial attempts by researchers proved unsuccessful.
When Rebstock took over the project, she successfully synthesized chloramphenicol in the laboratory. In 1949, chloramphenicol became the first antibiotic on the market with a broad spectrum of activity, making it effective against a wide range of bacteria.
Following the release of chloramphenicol, Rebstock received national attention from the media, being featured on radio shows, in newspapers and in magazines. She received the National Women's Press Club Woman of the Year award in 1950, presented by President Harry Truman. Rebstock continued the rest of her career at Parke-Davis, eventually being promoted to research leader in 1959.
Ada Yonath (1939)
Ada Yonath is still actively involved in research. Yonath was born to Polish immigrants in Jerusalem. She obtained her Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science and worked as a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, MIT, the Weizmann Institute and the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics.
While at Weizmann, Yonath established the first protein crystallography laboratory in Israel. Using X-ray crystallography, she studied the structure of the ribosome-the enzyme complex that carries out protein biosynthesis in all cells-to understand protein biosynthesis. By 2000, Yonath and her team had successfully determined the complete ribosomal structure, a significant achievement, considering the size and complexity of this enzyme complex. This structural information has been crucial to the understanding of how antibiotics inhibit bacterial growth and has facilitated the development of new antibiotics.
In 2009, Yonath received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in recognition of her "studies of the structure and function of the ribosome," along with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas Steitz. She is currently the Martin S. and Helen Kimmel Professor of Structural Biology in the Department of Chemistry at the Weizmann Institute of Science. At the Weizmann Institute, she has continued to lead research efforts on antimicrobial mechanisms of action and antimicrobial resistance.
These and many other dedicated women researchers played significant roles in the development of antimicrobial compounds which have been critical in the fight against infectious disease. These women are celebrated for their dual roles in advancing the field of antimicrobial research and breaking barriers for future women researchers in STEM fields.
