Pioneer Women in Immunology
Following in the footsteps of these early pioneers, women continue to be leaders in immunology
Vaccines have changed the course of public health and human history. Many diseases that once ravaged populations are now controlled, prevented, or in some cases, even eliminated, thanks to vaccines.
Women have been active participants in immunology throughout the history of the field, and have made many critical breakthroughs as doctors, researchers, and pioneers.
Here are four women whose historic contributions to vaccine medicine advanced public health, saved lives, and laid the groundwork for women in immunology today.
Dr. Anna Wessels Williams
Anna Wessels Williams was born in 1863 in New Jersey, and graduated from the New Jersey State Normal School in 1883. She left her career as a school teacher in 1887 to study medicine when she witnessed her sister almost die in the course of giving birth to a stillborn child. Struck by the ineffectiveness of the treatment her sister received, she decided to become a doctor. She received her MD from the Women's Medical College of the New York Infirmary. She interned at the New York Infirmary, and continued her medical training in Europe.
The vast majority of Dr. Williams' medical career was spent as a bacteriologist in the diagnostic laboratory of the New York City Department of Health. She worked there from 1894 to 1934, and during that time made several contributions to the prevention and treatment of disease.
Her isolation of a strain of diphtheria in 1894 was used to develop the first diphtheria antitoxin and later a diphtheria vaccine. That strain was named the “Park-Williams strain,” in recognition of Williams, and Dr. William Park, director of the laboratory who she collaborated with.
In 1898, she created a rabies vaccine. However, the 10-day diagnostic process for rabies was still resulting in high fatalities. In 1904, she discovered abnormal brain cells in rabid animals, a discovery also made by Italian pathologist Adelchi Negri, who published first and was widely recognized for the breakthrough. Williams used her method of identifying these “Negri bodies” to create a rapid diagnostic test for rabies that gave results within half an hour.
Williams became the assistant director of the laboratory in 1905 and published the text she'd co-authored with Park, Pathogenic Micro-organisms Including Bacteria and Protozoa: A Practical Manual for Students, Physicians and Health Officers. A foundational text in the field, it was reprinted 11 times by 1939. In 1929, Williams and Park published one of the earliest biomedical books aimed at the general public, Who's Who Among the Microbes.
Williams was the first woman to be elected chair of the laboratory section of the American Public Health Association, served as president of the Woman's Medical Association, and researched the 1918 Influenza Epidemic. She was forced to retire in 1934 at the age of 71, due to age limits for city employees. She died in 1954.
Drs. Pearl Kendrick and Grace Eldering
Pertussis, colloquially known as whooping cough, was a significant cause of child fatalities in the early 20th century, killing up to 6,000 people a year. Though many vaccines for common diseases had been developed by the 1930s, a fully-effective general vaccine for pertussis continued to elude researchers.
Laboratory partners and bacteriologists who also lived together, Pearl Louella Kendrick and Grace Eldering began their pertussis research project in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1932. Their work was hands-on in the community—Kendrick and Eldering built relationships with doctors and health department officials who notified them when pertussis outbreaks occurred and allowed nurses to collect cough plate samples for the research. Kendrick and Eldering themselves visited sick children in families often already in dire circumstances due to the Great Depression, collecting samples and seeing the effects of the disease first-hand.
Before creating their vaccine, Eldering and Kendrick first developed a more accurate diagnostic test for pertussis, using a more effective growth medium for cough plates. Consequently, they were able to observe the duration of the infection more precisely, and recommend new quarantine criteria which were adopted by the Grand Rapids Health Department.
Eldering and Kendrick developed methods for growing and deactivating the pertussis bacillus and created a safe general vaccine. They also designed the first large scale clinical trial for the pertussis vaccine. In 1938, the vaccine was mass-produced in Michigan and by 1940 it was national. In 1943, the American Academy of Pediatrics approved it for routine use, and the following year the American Medical Association recommended it. The incidence and fatality rate of pertussis dropped dramatically.
In the 1940s, Kendrick and Eldering continued to work on vaccines, joined by chemist Loney Gorden, an African-American woman and researcher. Together, they created an updated combined vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis, known then as DTP, now DtaP.
Kendrick promoted international vaccine standards and consulted with the World Health Organization. She lived with Eldering until her death in 1980. Eldering died in 1988. Their work saved countless children and increased the life expectancy for children in America.
Dr. Margaret Pittman
Margaret Jane Pittman was a pioneering bacteriologist. Her first major discovery was made as a doctoral student, conducting research at the Rockefeller Institute. She began studying haemophilus influenzae in 1929. She discovered six identifiable strains of h. influenza were encapsulated within a polysaccharide coating, and that strain B, or “Hib” was the kind that most often caused meningitis in children. She developed a therapeutic antiserum for the disease, and her work made future vaccine development possible.
Pittman spent most of her career at the National Institutes of Health, where she began working in 1936. She was the first woman to be laboratory chief, serving as the head of the Laboratory of Bacterial Products, Division of Biologics and Standards from late 1957 until her retirement in 1971. She is best known for her work improving and standardizing the pertussis vaccine, but also conducted life-changing research on typhoid and cholera vaccines in collaboration with the World Health Organization.
Pittman continued to work as a guest at NIH after her retirement until 1993. She died in 1995.
A Legacy That Continues Today
Following in the footsteps of these early pioneers, women continue to be leaders in immunology. From Jennifer Doudna, PhD, whose work in understanding RNA and gene editing helped revolutionize COVID-19 testing and potential future viral treatments, to Katalin Karikó, PhD, whose pioneering work in mRNA was critical in the creation of the COVID-19 vaccine, more and more women are making critical impacts on the lives of people around the world in this crucial field.
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