Dr Colin Thomson was a theoretical chemist before he founded Worldwide Cancer Research. He was a gamechanger who recognised that we needed to take action if we were to find new cures for cancer. We’re all about celebrating unknown scientists who changed the world, so here are some of our favourites from history.
Alice Augusta Ball
Year born: 1892
Location: US
Field: Chemistry
Known for: Leprosy treatment
Ball was an American chemist and a very interesting scientist, who developed the “Ball Method”, the most effective treatment for leprosy during the early 20th century. She was the first woman and first African American to receive a Master’s degree from the University of Hawaii and was also the university’s first female and first African American professor.
Her revolutionary research on leprosy went unpublished after she sadly died at the young age of 24. In a shocking turn of events, another chemist, Arthur L. Dean, stole her work, published her findings without giving her credit and named the technique after himself. It took until 1922 for the history books to be corrected and for Ball to receive published credit for her work.
Ibn Sina/Avicenna
Year born: 980
Location: Persia
Field: Everything
Known for: Writing “The Canon of Medicine”
Avicenna was a Persian polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant physicians, astronomers, thinkers and writers of the Islamic Golden Age and the father of early modern medicine.
He described an early scientific method of enquiry and wrote “The Canon of Medicine” in 1025, which was used as the standard medical textbook in the Islamic world and Europe up to the 18th century.
Ignaz Semmelweis
Year born: 1818
Location: Hungary
Field: Medicine
Known for: Reducing deaths at childbirth
Semmelweis was a Hungarian physician and scientist and an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures.
He discovered that the incidence of puerperal fever (high fever following childbirth) could be drastically cut by simply using hand disinfection in childbirth clinics.
Even though his methods reduced mortality below 1%, his ideas were rejected by the medical community at the time and he remains quite an unknown scientist.
It wasn’t until 20 years later, when Louis Pasteur formulated his famous germ theory, that Semmelweis’ ideas were accepted in the mainstream.
Rosalind Franklin
Year born: 1920
Location: UK
Field: Chemistry
Known for: Structure of DNA
You may have heard of Watson and Crick – the guys who made one of the most important discoveries in biology when they described the structure of DNA for the first time. But did you know their achievement was only possible because of an interesting scientist and X-ray crystallographer from the UK called Rosalind Franklin?
Franklin’s work was central to understanding of molecular structures of DNA, RNA and viruses. Her research was used without her consent by Watson and Crick and without acknowledgement on the breakthrough paper. Sadly, Franklin died aged 37 of ovarian cancer and she missed out on the Nobel prize shared by Watson, Crick and her boss, Wilkins.
The work by Rosalind Franklin paved the way for whole new areas of research. Today, understanding more about DNA helps researchers to find new cures for cancer.
Jennifer Doudna
Year born: 1964
Location: US
Field: Biochemistry
Known for: CRISPR gene editing
Doudna is an American biochemist known for her pioneering work in CRISPR gene editing – one of the most significant discoveries in the history of biology.
This game changing tool allows researchers to make tiny, precise genetic mutations to DNA and has opened a whole new area of research.
Doudna was awarded the 2020 Nobel prize in Chemistry with Emmanuelle Charpentier – the first all-female Nobel prize in Chemistry. Today, lots of the research funded by our Curestarters uses CRISPR technology to help look for new cancer cures.
Tu Youyou
Year born: 1930
Location: China
Field: Chemistry
Known for: Malaria drug
Tu Youyou is a Chinese pharmaceutical chemist who discovered dihydroartemisinin, the drug widely used to treat malaria. This discovery was a breakthrough in tropical medicine that has saved millions of lives globally.
She also is the first Chinese Nobel Laureate in physiology or medicine, and the first female citizen of China to receive a Nobel prize in any category.
Sophia Louisa Jex-Blake
Year born: 1840
Location: UK
Field: Medicine
Known for: One of the 'Edinburgh Seven'
Jex-Blake was an English physician, teacher and feminist who led the campaign to secure women access to a university education.
She began studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh as part of the “Edinburgh Seven” – the first group of undergraduate female students at any British university.
The “seven” were met with hostility, escalating to the Surgeon’s Hall riot. Jex-Blake was the first practising female doctor in Scotland and was involved in founding two medical schools for women at a time when no other medical schools were training women.
Why do some scientists who make such important discoveries remain unknown?
These interesting scientists are not the only people who have made incredible discoveries but never made front page news. Sometimes science can be complicated and lots of people are involved, which makes it harder to know who to credit.
Sometimes people are sadly overlooked when the history books are written. And sometimes the most amazing discoveries are not believed, even by other scientists, until more evidence is gathered.
What makes a scientist inspirational?
Here at Worldwide Cancer Research we believe all scientists are inspirational. It takes a huge amount of patience, hard-work and creativity to dedicate your career to research and without incredible scientists, we would not have any cancer cures.
What is truly inspirational though, is when scientists make a breakthrough that goes on to have a long-lasting impact. Those ‘a-ha!’ moments in the lab that make us look at things in a whole new way, or reveal something unexpected. That’s why we fund discovery research – where scientists ask new questions about cancer and find out brand new information that paves the way to new cures.
All these inspirational scientists had a bright idea which they pursued through research and ultimately ended up saving lives. With your support, we can continue funding researchers all over the world who have bright ideas too. Ideas that could be the start of new cancer cures of the future.
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