Regine Kapeller-Adler

Regina Kapeller-Adler, 1930

Regine Kapeller-Adler ( June 28, 1900 in Stanislau , Galicia (now Ivano-Frankiwsk, Ukraine) - July 31, 1991 in Edinburgh ), b. Kapeller, was an Austro-British biochemist and pharmacologist . She developed an early and rapid pregnancy test .

Live and act

Regine Kapeller-Adler was born in Galicia on June 28, 1900 , the daughter of Moritz Kapeller, an employee of the Canadian Pacific and the Royal Mail Line . She attended the grammar school in Brody and finally the Reformrealgymnasium in Vienna's Leopoldstadt , where she graduated on July 3, 1918. They then studied from 1918 to 1923 at the Faculty of the University of Vienna and completed his PhD on June 9, 1923, Dr. phil.

In 1924 she became a demonstrator at the Institute for Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Vienna and from 1926 extraordinary or later full assistant until 1934. In 1928 she married the physician Ernst Adler (1899–1970). As a woman and Jew, she was advised not to do a planned habilitation ; despite her excellent academic work, this would be rejected. After her position ended, she continued to work unpaidly in academic research.

In 1933 she developed and published a chemical urine test for early pregnancy detection, based on her discovery of histidine excretion in early pregnancy. The detection of histidine in the urine (and thus pregnancy) was carried out by a color reaction within four hours. The most ideal early diagnosis up to that point, the Aschheim-Zondek reaction (AZ test), took a hundred hours to produce a result and required young female mice that had to be killed to determine the result. The newspaper Der Wiener Tag called Kapeller-Adler’s discovery a "significant gain for gynecology and obstetrics". Their method was not yet the final breakthrough in modern pregnancy tests, as it occasionally gave false negative results. For this reason, their test was not generally introduced, but was used in some places as a preliminary test: If the result was positive, pregnancy was proven, if the result was negative, the complex AZ test could still be added. It was not until the late 1950s that animal testing could finally be abandoned.

After the birth of their daughter, Kapeller-Adler began studying medicine at the University of Vienna in 1934. She passed the first two rigorous exams with excellent results. In addition to her studies, she worked part-time at the biochemical laboratory of the health insurance fund from 1935 to 1936 and from 1936/37 headed the laboratory for clinical and medical-chemical diagnostics at the Hera sanatorium . After the “ Anschluss ”, she and her husband lost their jobs in 1938, she could not finish her medical studies and had to leave the University of Vienna.

As an internationally known researcher, she was placed on the list of the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning (SPSL) and was able to leave Austria and emigrate with her family to Great Britain in January 1939. Until 1940 she worked at the Institute of Animal Genetics at Edinburgh University , which was then the only pregnancy diagnostic laboratory in Great Britain. Her husband Ernst was briefly interned as an " Enemy Alien ", but after numerous medical exams and administrative difficulties he was able to work as a doctor in Great Britain from 1942. In 1943 he opened a practice in Edinburgh.

In July 1941 Kapeller-Adler was awarded the Doctor of Science by the University of Edinburgh for her research studies . From 1940 to 1944 she worked at the Biochemical Laboratory of the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh and from September 1944 at the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Edinburgh. From 1951 to 1964 she was a lecturer in the Department of Clinical Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh and then moved to the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology there until 1968.

She maintained numerous international contacts, including with former faculty members of the universities of Vienna and Graz, who had to emigrate after 1938, as did Otto Loewi , Alfred Fröhlich , Ernst P. Pick and Richard Wagner .

In June 1973 the University of Vienna awarded her the Golden Honorary Diploma.

Kapeller-Adler died in Edinburgh on July 31, 1991.

Publications (selection)

• Regine Kapeller-Adler, Heinz Herrmann: On the question of histidinuria in pregnancy . In: Clinical weekly . Issue 13, August 1934, p. 1220 , doi : 10.1007 / BF01780010 .
• Amine Oxidases and Methods for their Study . Wiley-Interscience, 1970, ISBN 978-0-471-45676-6 (English).

source

• Herbert Posch: Regine Kapeller - Adler. In: Memorial Book for the Victims of National Socialism at the University of Vienna in 1938. Retrieved on March 25, 2019 . 

Individual evidence

1. ^ Regine Kapeller-Adler (1900-1991). In: Museum of Contraception and Abortion . Retrieved March 25, 2019 .