Biographical Memoirs Volume 57 (1987) / Chapter Skim
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Rebecca Craighill Lancefield
Rebecca Craighill Lancefield
Pages 226-247
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From page 227... ...
C~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ · · ~ ~ c~ c~ c~ ~ But she was forced to compromise: funds were short because of the death of her father, and her mother needed her help in supporting her five sisters. She saved enough from her earnings as a teacher cluring the following year to enable her to accept a scholarship with graduate tuition at Teachers' College of Columbia University.
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From page 228... ...
At that time, however, they traveled to Texas as consultants to the Surgeon General of the Army to investigate an outbreak of serious streptococcal infections that tract been superimposed on a measles epidemic in a number of military installations there. Returning to New York with a collection of streptococcal strains that tract been isolates]
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From page 229... ...
There can be little oubt that Rebecca Lancefielcl's native talent for solving this type of problem, perhaps accelerated in its development under the tutelage of two established masters, was a prime factor in the success of these studies. That she contributed much more than simply technical help was tacitly acknowIeciged by the inclusion of her name as a coauthor of the paper, a type of recognition selclom accorded to technical assistants in those clays.
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Dochez went to Johns Hopkins; Avery returned to his first love, the pneumococcus; and Lancefield moved back to Columbia where she worked as a research assistant on problems of Drosophila genetics. Nevertheless, the streptococcal strains were not all simply discarded.
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From page 231... ...
Consequently, she consiclered the laborious and cletailed serological analysis of the large family of streptococci as being primarily an essential means to a more significant enct: that of determining the chemical nature and biological significance of the antigenic substances responsible for the serological reactions. The systematic classification that emerged from her serological grouping and typing of streptococci was not in
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From page 232... ...
(The continuing close relationship with the Avery laboratory is illustratect by the fact that when Avery anct his colleagues shortly thereafter found an analogous species-specific carbohydrate in pneumococcus, it was also callecI C-carbohydrate or C-substance.) The great importance of the streptococcal C-carbohydrate, however, proved
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From page 233... ...
Group A streptococci are responsible for most of the serious streptococcal infections of man, anc! it is infection with this group of organisms that leads to the poststreptococcal sequelae, rheumatic fever and gIomerutonephritis.
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His technical approach differed significantly from that of Lancefield: he dependecl primarily on slide agglutination for serological differentiation of his strains, and she used a precipitin technique that depended on the property of her soluble antigens to give visible precipitates when mixed with antisera. Both workers usecI extensive adsorption of their antisera with heterologous strains to eliminate crossreactions.
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From page 235... ...
take part in slide agglutination and thus be cletectect by Griffith, but it was not present in the soluble M-protein extracts. Subsequently, LancefielcI ant!
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From page 236... ...
This surface antigen not only determines the type specificity of the numerous strains of group A streptococci but also serves to protect the organism from host defenses. When M-protein is present, the white blood cells appear to be unable to engulf and destroy the organisms; in the presence of specific antibody, however, this protective effect of Mprotein is neutralized and the white cells can do their job.
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From page 237... ...
She carried out extensive studies of representative M- and T-antigens, a new surface protein that she designated as it-antigen, and the polysaccharide antigens of group B streptococci. In addition, in an illuminating study of the persistence of type-specific antibodies in man following group A streptococcal infections, she showed that lasting immunity to the M-antigen is commonly encountered.
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From page 238... ...
the T Duckett {ones Award of the Helen Hay Whitney Founciation in 1960, the American Heart Association Achievement Award in 1964, and the Medal of the New York Acaclemy of Medicine in 1973.
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From page 239... ...
A visitor with an interest in streptococcal problems would leave with a thorough indoctrination anct with most of his questions answered—as well as with a collection of cultures of reference streptococcal strains anct samples of the relevant antisera. Streptococcal strains and antisera, together with directions for their use, were freely supplied to laboratories all over the worIcI.
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From page 240... ...
She was not enthusiastic about honors that recognized her as the "first woman" to clo this or that and preferred those that came without reference to her sex. She had no illusions about the difficulties of having both a scientific career anct a family, but she felt that with determination and hard work it was possible without special treatment.
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received her education in the classics. She has not managed to avoid science altogether, however; for some time, she served as a book review editor for The American Scientist.
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II. Serological reactions obtained with antinucleoprotein sera.
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From page 243... ...
Med., 57:57 1-95. 1934 A serological differentiation of specific types of bovine hemolytic streptococci.
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Med., 71:539-50. 1941 Specific relationship of cell composition to biological activity of hemolytic streptococci.
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Med., 102: 11-28. 1957 Differentiation of group A streptococci with a common R antigen into three serological types, with special reference to the bactericidal test.
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McCarty. Teichoic acids of group D streptococci with special reference to strains from pig meningitis (Streptococcus suds)
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