Rosalyn Sussman Yalow was born in New York City, New York, on July 19, 1921. She attended Hunter College and the University of Illinois, receiving her Ph.D. in physics in 1945. Then, from 1945 to 1950, she taught at Hunter College.
In 1947, Rosalyn joined the staff at the Bronx Veterans Administration Hospital and served as the Mount Sinai School of Medicine's research professor. Thirty years later, she received the Nobel Prize in medicine for the radio immunoassay procedure's application to biomedical research.
Rosalyn and her partner were responsible for the use of iodine as a tracer for the diagnosis of thyroid disease, investigated serum protein distribution in the human body, discovered (in insulin-treated patients' plasma) traces of insulin-binding antibodies, studied gastrin, the parathyroid hormone, the human growth hormone and corticotrophin, and made a procedure that enable today's doctors to diagnose hormonal excesses or deficiences and the diseases that are associated with them.
