Russell, Jane Anne (1911–1967)

American biochemist and endocrinologist who was recognized as the world authority on carbohydrate metabolism during the 1940s and 1950s. Name variations: Jane A. Russell; Jane Russell Wilhelmi. Born on February 9, 1911, in Los Angeles County (now Watts), California; died of breast cancer on March 12, 1967, in Atlanta, Georgia; daughter of Josiah Howard Russell (a rancher and deputy sheriff) and Mary Ann (Phillips) Russell; graduated from the Polytechnic High School in Long Beach, California, 1928; University of California at Berkeley, B.S., 1932; Institute of Experimental Biology, Ph.D., 1937; married Alfred Ellis Wilhelmi (a scientist and professor), on August 26, 1940.

The career of biochemist Jane Anne Russell demonstrates both the level of achievement reached and the difficulties faced by women in scientific research in the 1940s and 1950s. Although Russell worked in her chosen field for over three decades, eventually produced over 70 publications, received numerous prestigious awards, and had substantial influence in shaping science policy, she did not receive formal recognition and a promotion to full professor until 1965, when she was terminally ill.

Russell was born on February 9, 1911, in California, the last of the five children of Josiah Howard Russell and Mary Ann Phillips Russell . The family was poor; her father built a homestead near Los Angeles, earning a living as a rancher and deputy sheriff. Russell was an excellent student, especially talented in mathematics. She graduated second in her class from Polytechnic High School in Long Beach, California, after two years of study, and entered the University of California at Berkeley at age 17. By the time she graduated Phi Beta Kappa four years later, she was first in her class and had earned the University Gold Medal, a Stewart Scholarship, and the Kraft prize.

Russell continued her studies with graduate work at Berkeley, financing her education by working as a technician for Edward S. Sundstroem, the chair of the department. In 1934, she received the California Fellowship in Biochemistry and, the following year, the Rosenberg Fellowship. As a Ph.D. candidate, she worked in the Institute of Experimental Biology, researching the role of pituitary hormones in carbohydrate metabolism. Before even receiving her doctorate in 1937, she had published six papers on this topic and had several others under preparation. She collaborated with Carl and Gerty T. Cori , who would share the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1947, on carbohydrate research at Washington University in St. Louis. Russell's recognized genius was in her design of comparatively uncomplicated experiments that uncovered important information for the resolution of unanswered questions.

By the time she began work as a National Research Council fellow at Yale University in 1938, Russell was considered an international expert in the field of carbohydrate metabolism. Her research had shown that during times of carbohydrate deprivation, an unknown agent maintained levels of tissue carbohydrate, including blood glucose (she later identified this unknown factor as growth hormone). This research brought attention to the existence of balancing factors in carbohydrate metabolism, and provided grounding for later studies of body growth, maintenance and breakdown.

During her time at Yale, Russell continued her work on the hormonal regulation of carbohydrate metabolism. She collaborated with Alfred Ellis Wilhelmi, whom she would marry in 1940 and who worked with the growth hormone which Russell later showed to be the regulator of the activity of pituitary extracts. Fellowships supported her work before she became an instructor in 1941. Her nine years in this position earned her numerous prestigious scientific distinctions usually granted only to full professors, such as the Ciba Award in 1946. Despite these accomplishments and the fact that she was a world-renowned authority in her field, Russell was never formally recognized by Yale through academic promotions. This glaring omission later became cited as an example of discrimination against women in academia.

In 1950, Russell moved with Wilhelmi to Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where she became an assistant professor and he was named professor and chair of the department of biochemistry. She continued to earn recognition for her research at Emory by expanding her focus to include nitrogen metabolism; as a result of her studies in this area, she postulated that the growth hormone was essential for the prevention of the breakdown of structural proteins—a theory later proved correct. She was considered an excellent teacher as well, known for the clarity of her lectures and her enthusiasm for helping students.

Russell's move to Atlanta corresponded with the beginning of her four-year involvement with the National Institutes of Health study section on metabolism and endocrinology. She later became a member of the National Research Council Committee for the Evaluation of Post-Doctoral Fellowships and a member of the highly regarded National Science Board. In 1958, she joined the editorial board of the American Physiological Society. She was named Atlanta's Woman of the Year in Professions in 1961, the same year that she and Wilhelmi shared the Upjohn Award of the Endocrine Society. She finally had been promoted to associate professor at Emory in 1953, but still did not earn promotion to full professor until 1965, three years into her battle with breast cancer. She died in Atlanta in 1967. In 1976, Emory University instituted the annual Jane Russell Wilhelmi Memorial Lecture in her honor.

sources:

Bailey, Brooke. The Remarkable Lives of 100 Women Healers and Scientists. Holbrook, MA: Bob Adams, 1994.

Sicherman, Barbara, and Carol Hurd Green, eds. Notable American Women: The Modern Period. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1980.

Kelly Winters , freelance writer, Bayville, New York