Vox Meditantis

In 1947, when Gerty Cori became the first American woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, it should have been a moment of unqualified triumph. Instead, it marked the culmination of a decades-long struggle against institutional sexism that had seen this brilliant biochemist paid a tenth of her husband’s salary for identical work, barred from laboratories, and systematically erased from scientific recognition. Cori’s discovery of the metabolic pathway that bears her name—the Cori cycle—revolutionised our understanding of how the human body converts and stores energy, laying crucial groundwork for diabetes treatment and modern biochemistry. Yet her story remains one of the most glaring examples of how scientific institutions have historically marginalised women’s contributions, rendering invisible the very minds that advanced our collective knowledge.

Breaking Through Barriers: Education Against the Odds

Gerty Theresa Radnitz was born into a prosperous Jewish family in Prague in 1896, at a time when women faced systematic exclusion from higher education. Her father, a chemist who had invented new sugar refining processes, and her cultured mother who counted Franz Kafka amongst her social circle, provided an intellectually stimulating environment. Yet when Gerty decided at sixteen to pursue medicine, she confronted an educational system designed to keep women out.

The challenge was stark: girls’ schools of the era deliberately omitted Latin, mathematics, physics, and chemistry from their curricula—precisely the subjects required for medical school entrance. Rather than accept this institutional barrier, Gerty embarked on what can only be described as an academic marathon. She compressed eight years of Latin, five years of science, and five years of mathematics into a single year whilst simultaneously preparing for university entrance examinations. This extraordinary feat of intellectual determination enabled her admission to the German University of Prague’s Medical School in 1914, making her one of the few women in her class.

It was here, in an anatomy class, that she met Carl Cori, beginning both a personal and professional partnership that would span nearly four decades. Their shared passions for science, skiing, and mountaineering forged a bond that would prove unbreakable, even as the world around them crumbled into war and persecution.

Escaping Europe: From Prague to Promise

The couple graduated in 1920 and married immediately, but their future in post-war Europe looked increasingly bleak. Anti-Semitism was rising across Austria-Hungary, and despite Gerty’s conversion to Catholicism for their marriage, her Jewish heritage remained a professional liability. The economic devastation was equally challenging—Gerty developed symptoms of vitamin A deficiency whilst working at Vienna’s Karolinen Children’s Hospital, a condition that resolved only when she returned to Prague for better nutrition.

In 1922, the Coris made the momentous decision to emigrate to America, a choice that would prove transformative for biochemistry. Carl secured a position as biochemist at the State Institute for the Study of Malignant Disease in Buffalo, New York, whilst Gerty was offered a lesser role as assistant pathologist. This pattern—her relegation to subordinate positions despite equivalent qualifications—would plague her entire career.

Scientific Partnership Under Siege

From their earliest days in Buffalo, the Coris faced institutional hostility toward their collaboration. Gerty was explicitly threatened with dismissal if she continued working with her husband, with administrators claiming such partnership was “un-American” and detrimental to Carl’s career. The accusation reveals the profound sexism of the era: a woman’s scientific contribution was automatically viewed as parasitic rather than complementary.

Yet the couple persisted, conducting their groundbreaking research in secret when necessary. Their early work focused on tumour metabolism before turning to the fundamental question of how the body manages energy storage and release. This research would prove revolutionary, but recognition remained elusive for Gerty.

When Carl was offered the chairmanship of Washington University’s pharmacology department in 1931, Gerty was granted only a research position with a token salary. The disparity was shocking: despite performing equivalent work in the same laboratory, she received merely 10% of her husband’s compensation. As she later reflected with characteristic understatement, this arrangement meant she felt no guilt about accepting her full salary even during illness, given years of systematic underpayment.

The Cori Cycle: A Revolutionary Discovery

Despite these obstacles, the Coris produced work of extraordinary significance. In 1929, they formulated what became known as the Cori cycle—the process by which glycogen converts to glucose in the liver and reconverts to glycogen in muscle. This discovery illuminated how the body maintains constant energy supply, particularly during intense physical activity when oxygen becomes insufficient for normal metabolism.

The cycle’s elegance lies in its efficiency: during anaerobic exercise, muscles break down glycogen to produce energy, generating lactate as a byproduct. Rather than accumulating harmfully, this lactate travels to the liver, where it’s converted back to glucose through gluconeogenesis and returned to muscles for renewed energy storage. This understanding proved crucial for comprehending metabolic disorders, particularly diabetes, and laid groundwork for modern treatments.

The Coris further identified glucose-1-phosphate (dubbed the “Cori ester”) and discovered phosphorylase, the enzyme catalysing glycogen breakdown. Their meticulous work purifying and crystallising muscle phosphorylase revealed two distinct enzyme forms and their respective regulatory roles. These discoveries inspired subsequent research into fundamental regulatory processes, including the adenylate cyclase-cyclic AMP system and enzyme phosphorylation.

Recognition at Last—But at What Cost?

The Nobel Prize finally arrived in 1947, shared with Carl and Argentine physiologist Bernardo Houssay “for their discovery of the course of the catalytic conversion of glycogen”. Gerty became not only the first American woman to receive the Nobel in Physiology or Medicine but only the third woman globally to win a Nobel in science, following Marie Curie and her daughter Irène Joliot-Curie.

Yet even this triumph was shadowed by tragedy. During their celebratory mountain climbing expedition that summer, the Coris discovered Gerty had developed myelosclerosis, a fatal blood disorder. She would battle this illness for ten years, maintaining her research almost until her death in 1957. Carl later wrote that “she bore [the disease] with great fortitude and without letup in her scientific interests”.

The Matilda Effect: Systematic Erasure

Gerty Cori’s career exemplifies the “Matilda effect”—the systematic attribution of women’s scientific achievements to their male colleagues. Despite her equal contributions, Carl consistently received primary credit for their discoveries. She remained absent from official laboratory stationery even after publishing sole-authored papers. When Carl was offered positions at other universities, the institutions frequently demanded he cease collaborating with his wife as a condition of employment.

This treatment reflects broader patterns of discrimination that persist today. Research confirms that women scientists continue facing bias in evaluation, citation, and media representation. Gerty’s experience was not aberrant but paradigmatic of how institutions have historically undermined women’s scientific contributions.

Legacy and Lessons

The Coris built Washington University’s Department of Biochemistry into a world-renowned centre that produced seven future Nobel laureates. Their collaborative model demonstrated that scientific partnerships could transcend traditional hierarchies, even as institutions resisted this innovation. As Carl reflected at their Nobel banquet, “Our collaboration began 30 years ago when we were still medical students at the University of Prague and has continued ever since. Our efforts have been largely complementary, and one without the other would not have gone as far as in combination”.

Gerty Cori’s story demands recognition not merely as a historical curiosity but as an urgent contemporary lesson. Her brilliance advanced human knowledge immeasurably, yet systemic discrimination nearly erased her contributions entirely. We honour her memory best by confronting the ongoing barriers that prevent other brilliant minds from achieving their full potential. Science progresses through collective effort—we diminish it when we marginalise half the population’s contributions.

Her legacy lives on in every diabetes treatment, every metabolic study, every student who learns about cellular energy conversion. The Cori cycle remains fundamental to biochemistry education worldwide. Yet how many students learn of the woman who discovered it whilst fighting for basic recognition? Gerty Cori deserves remembrance not as Carl’s assistant but as a pioneering scientist whose determination changed our understanding of life itself.

Bob Lynn | © 2025 Vox Meditantis. All rights reserved.