25 Women Who Changed Medicine
From the first woman to earn an MD in the United States to the researchers shaping medicine now, this is a working index of the clinicians, scientists, and advocates whose work reshaped what medicine is able to do. Ordered chronologically.
-
1
Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910)
First woman to earn an MD in the United States (Geneva Medical College, 1849). Co-founded the New York Infirmary for Women and Children, which became one of the first teaching hospitals for women physicians.
Johns Hopkins University Institute of the History of Medicine
-
2
Rebecca Lee Crumpler (1831-1895)
First Black woman in the US to earn an MD (1864). Practiced in Boston and post-war Richmond, treating formerly enslaved people and publishing *A Book of Medical Discourses* (1883) — one of the first medical texts by a Black American author.
-
3
Florence Nightingale (1820-1910)
Founded modern nursing as a profession. Her statistical analyses of Crimean War mortality transformed hospital sanitation practice — she pioneered polar area diagrams to visualize medical data.
-
4
Marie Curie (1867-1934)
Two-time Nobel laureate (Physics 1903, Chemistry 1911). Her research enabled the discovery of radiation therapy for cancer; she personally supervised mobile X-ray units at WWI field hospitals.
-
5
Virginia Apgar (1909-1974)
Developed the Apgar Score in 1952 — the 10-point newborn assessment used on every baby born in a hospital. Reduced infant mortality globally by standardizing post-birth evaluation.
-
6
Gertrude Elion (1918-1999)
Nobel laureate (Physiology or Medicine, 1988). Developed the first effective leukemia drugs, immunosuppressants for organ transplant, and the first antiviral (acyclovir). Held 45 patents without ever completing a PhD.
-
7
Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958)
X-ray crystallographer whose Photo 51 revealed the double-helix structure of DNA. Watson and Crick used her unpublished data to build their 1953 model; Franklin died of cancer before the Nobel Prize was awarded.
-
8
Frances Oldham Kelsey (1914-2015)
FDA reviewer who refused to approve thalidomide for US market in 1960 — preventing thousands of birth defects. Her scrutiny directly led to the Kefauver-Harris Amendment strengthening drug approval.
-
9
Jane Cooke Wright (1919-2013)
Pioneer of chemotherapy. Developed the technique of testing drug efficacy on tissue from individual patients — the foundation of modern personalized oncology.
-
10
Helen Taussig (1898-1986)
Founded pediatric cardiology. Co-developed the Blalock-Taussig shunt (1944), which saved blue babies with congenital heart defects. First woman elected president of the American Heart Association.
-
11
Nobel laureates — Rita Levi-Montalcini, Barbara McClintock, Gertrude Elion, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, Linda Buck, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider, Youyou Tu, May-Britt Moser, Tu Youyou, Jennifer Doudna, Emmanuelle Charpentier, Katalin Karikó
14 women have won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (through 2024); 9 since 2000.
-
12
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (b. 1947)
Co-discovered HIV (1983); shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Her work established the viral etiology of AIDS and enabled the development of antiretroviral therapy.
-
13
Patricia Goldman-Rakic (1937-2003)
Revolutionized understanding of the prefrontal cortex — the region governing working memory and executive function. Her mapping of dopamine receptors laid the groundwork for modern schizophrenia treatment.
-
14
Mary-Claire King (b. 1946)
Identified BRCA1 in 1990 — the first known breast cancer susceptibility gene, changing hereditary cancer screening and preventive care globally. Also pioneered genetic identification of disappeared children in Argentina.
-
15
Katalin Karikó (b. 1955)
Nobel laureate (Physiology or Medicine, 2023). Her decades of work on modified mRNA — dismissed and defunded for years — became the platform for COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, now used by billions.
-
16
Jennifer Doudna (b. 1964)
Co-discovered CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing with Emmanuelle Charpentier; shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. CRISPR has transformed genetic research and is now in clinical use for sickle cell disease.
-
17
Emmanuelle Charpentier (b. 1968)
Co-discovered CRISPR-Cas9 with Doudna; shared 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Her characterization of the bacterial immune system that became CRISPR enabled precise DNA editing.
-
18
Kizzmekia Corbett (b. 1986)
NIH immunologist whose pre-pandemic work on coronavirus spike proteins directly enabled the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Led the NIH team whose vaccine design reached clinical trial 66 days after the virus genome was sequenced.
-
19
Paula Hammond (b. 1963)
MIT chemical engineer developing 'nano-sandwich' drug delivery systems for ovarian cancer. Named to the National Academy of Sciences in 2019; her layer-by-layer assembly technique enables targeted chemotherapy.
-
20
Bonnie Bassler (b. 1962)
Discovered bacterial quorum sensing — how bacteria 'talk' to coordinate behavior. Her work has opened entirely new classes of antibiotics that disarm rather than kill pathogens, addressing antibiotic resistance.
-
21
Helen Mayberg (b. 1956)
Developed deep brain stimulation therapy for treatment-resistant depression. Her mapping of Brodmann area 25 as a depression hub has opened new therapeutic pathways for severely ill patients.
-
22
Tu Youyou (b. 1930)
Discovered artemisinin, the most effective drug against malaria. Her 1969 work — conducted without a medical or PhD degree — has saved an estimated 20 million lives. Awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
-
23
Nubia Muñoz (b. 1940)
Colombian epidemiologist who established that HPV causes cervical cancer. Her work directly enabled the development of HPV vaccines, now preventing cervical cancer globally.
-
24
Helen Brooke Taussig, Anna Freud, Bertha Pappenheim — founders
A generation of early-20th-century women who founded entire subspecialties: Taussig (pediatric cardiology), Anna Freud (child psychoanalysis), Pappenheim (social work foundations).
Sage Encyclopedia of Intellectual and Developmental Disorders
-
25
Audrey Evans (1925-2022)
Pediatric oncologist whose 1971 'Evans Staging System' transformed treatment of childhood neuroblastoma. Co-founded the first Ronald McDonald House in 1974, now a global network supporting families of seriously ill children.
Sources
Frequently asked
How many women have won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine?
14 women, from Gerty Cori (1947) through Katalin Karikó (2023). Nine of the 14 wins have come since 2000.
Who was the first woman to earn an MD in the US?
Elizabeth Blackwell at Geneva Medical College in 1849. The first Black woman to earn an MD in the US was Rebecca Lee Crumpler in 1864.
Who developed the Apgar score?
Virginia Apgar, in 1952. The 10-point newborn assessment is used on nearly every baby born in a hospital today.
What's the history of CRISPR gene editing?
Co-discovered by Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier, published in Science in 2012. Both were awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the work.
Why was Rosalind Franklin denied the Nobel Prize?
She died of ovarian cancer in 1958, before the 1962 Nobel Prize for DNA structure. Nobel rules don't permit posthumous awards. Her X-ray crystallography data was used without her consent by Watson and Crick.