Gerty Theresa Radnitz Cori, the first Jewish woman to receive a Nobel Prize (and the third woman after Marie Curie and Irene Joliot-Curie), was born on in Prague on this date in 1896. Her father was a scientist; her mother was close to Franz Kafka.
Cori became a doctor during a time when very few women gained access to medical school, and she was denied research positions throughout her career, yet she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine in 1947, with her husband Carl Cori, for their discovery of how carbohydrates are metabolized and broken down in muscle tissue into lactic acid.
The movement of energy in the body — from muscle, to the liver, and back to muscle — is called the Cori Cycle. Cori died of myelofibrosis in 1957. The Cori crater on the Moon is named after her.
“Honesty, which stands mostly for intellectual integrity, courage and kindness, are still the virtues I admire, though with advancing years the emphasis has been slightly shifted and kindness seem more important to me than in my youth. The love for and dedication to one’s work seem to me to be the basis for happiness.” —Gerty Radnitz Cori
