Rosalyn Sussman Yalow was awarded the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for an analytical technique called radioimmunoassay (RIA) which accurately measures trace amounts of substances, such as insulin, in the body. She was the first American-born woman to win a Nobel Prize in science. Rosalyn Yalow was born in the Bronx, New York on July 19, 1921. She graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Hunter College in 1941. She was the first woman since 1917 to receive a teaching assistantship in physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she taught and worked toward her M.S. degree in physics. In 1942 she married fellow graduate student Aaron Yalow. Three years later, she received her Ph.D. degree in nuclear physics.

While teaching at Hunter College in 1946, she began to volunteer in Dr. Edith Quimby's laboratory at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University. Here she gained experience in the application of radioisotopes to solve medical problems. She became a consultant to the Veterans Administration Hospital in the Bronx, during which time she began studying the use of radioisotopes in clinical diagnosis, therapy, and analysis. In 1950 Solomon A. Berson joined her group and remained a collaborator until his death in 1972. They jointly discovered and developed the RIA technique for insulin. Yalow was the first woman to receive the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award in 1976.

1. Nobel e-Museum: Autobiography of Rosalyn S. Yalow
2. Boston Globe Archives: Dr. Yalow Talks About Her Work

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