Florence B. Seibert

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Florence B. Seibert

Florence Barbara Seibert (born October 6, 1897 in Easton , Pennsylvania , † August 23, 1991 in Saint Petersburg , Florida ) was an American biochemist .

Life

Florence Barbara Seibert was born on October 6, 1897 in Easton, Pennsylvania, and was one of three children of George Peter Seibert and Barbara Memmert. At the age of three, she developed polio , which left her lifelong dependent on orthoses and limping . She graduated from high school top of the class, received multiple offers for scholarships, and chose Goucher College in Baltimore . Originally, she wanted to be a doctor, but after completing her bachelor's degree in 1918 , she worked for two years in the chemistry laboratory at Hammersley Paper Mill in Garfield , New Jersey, and decided, also due to her disability, to pursue an academic career. She then studied biochemistry at Yale University with Lafayette B. Mendel , where she received her PhD in 1923 .

As a post-doctoral student , she went to the University of Chicago , where she was employed by the Otho SA Sprague Memorial Institute as assistant to Esmond R. Long , with whom she spent 30 years researching tuberculosis , developing and improving a reliable and standardized test for Diagnosis of the infectious disease was in the foreground. In 1932 both moved to the Henry Phipps Institute of the University of Pennsylvania , where Florence B. Seibert worked until her retirement in 1959 (Assistant Professor 1932, Associate Professor 1938, Professor 1955).

The first tuberculosis skin test was introduced in 1907 by the Austrian physician Clemens von Pirquet and was based on the tuberculin originally introduced as a remedy by Robert Koch in 1890 . This protein extract from cultures of the pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis proved unsuitable for curing tuberculosis, but could be used to generate an immune response from previously or currently infected people. However, the tuberculin produced according to Koch proved to be unsuitable for standardization because of the fluctuating protein concentration, mixture and purity as well as the resulting low specificity . In 1934 Florence B. Seibert developed a reliably reproducible method for producing a better protein extract , the so-called purified protein derivative (PPD). By the early 1940s, she continued to improve the method, creating a 107g batch of PPD, which became the reference standard of the US Public Health Service's Bureau of Biologics Standards and has been referred to as PPD-S since 1944. In 1952, PPD-S was also adopted as an international standard by the World Health Organization .

After her retirement in 1959, she moved to Saint Petersburg , Florida , where she worked for several years in cancer research and as a consultant at the Bay Pines Veterans Administration Hospital . She died in Saint Petersburg on August 23, 1991 at the age of 93.

Awards (selection)

literature

  • TM Daniel: Florence Barbara Seibert and purified protein derivative. In: The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease. Vol. 13, No. 3, 2009, pp. 281-282.
  • Elizabeth H. Oakes: Encyclopedia of World Scientists. Revised Edition, Facts On File, 2007, ISBN 978-1-4381-1882-6 , p. 656 f ( online ).
  • Marilyn Ogilvie, Joy Harvey (Eds.): The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science. Volume 2, Routledge, 2000, ISBN 978-0-415-92040-7 , pp. 1173 f.
  • Florence B. Seibert: Pebbles on the Hill of a Scientist. Saint Petersburg, FL 1968.
  • Laura Lynn Windsor: Women in Medicine: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, CA 2002, ISBN 1-57607-392-0 , pp. 184 f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Elizabeth H. Oakes: Encyclopedia of World Scientists. Revised Edition, Facts On File, 2007, p. 656 f.
  2. ↑ a b Marilyn Ogilvie, Joy Harvey (Ed.): The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science. Volume 2, Routledge, 2000, pp. 1173 f.
  3. ^ A b T. M. Daniel: Florence Barbara Seibert and purified protein derivative. In: The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease. Vol. 13, No. 3, 2009, pp. 281-282.
  4. ^ Elsie Lee, Robert S. Holzman: Evolution and Current Use of the Tuberculin Test. In: Clinical Infectious Diseases. Vol. 34, No. 3, 2002, pp. 365-370, doi: 10.1086 / 338149 .
  5. ↑ Hongliang Yang, Nicole A. Kruh-Garcia, Karen M. Dobos: Purified Protein Derivatives of Tuberculin - Past, Present, and Future. In: FEMS Immunology & Medical Microbiology. Vol. 66, No. 3, pp. 273-280, 2012, doi: 10.1111 / j.1574-695X.2012.01002.x . PMC 3491170 (free full text)
  6. ^ Nancy J. Freeman: Easton 'Close To My Heart,' Dr. Seibert Says. The Morning Call, March 6, 1986. Retrieved July 24, 2014.
  7. ^ Trudeau Award. ( September 16, 2016 memento on the Internet Archive ) American Lung Association / American Thoracic Society. Retrieved July 21, 2014.
  8. ^ The John Scott Award Recipients 1941-1950. Eugene Garfield Webpage, Member of the John Scott Award Advisory Committee. Retrieved July 21, 2014.
  9. ↑ Florence B. Seibert. National Women's Hall of Fame. Retrieved July 21, 2014.
personal data
SURNAME Seibert, Florence B.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Seibert, Florence Barbara (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American biochemist
DATE OF BIRTH October 6, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Easton , Pennsylvania , United States
DATE OF DEATH 23rd August 1991
Place of death Saint Petersburg , Florida , United States