Nobel Prize Recipient. Gerty Cori received world-wide recognition after being awarded the 1947 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. She was the third woman to receive a Nobel Prize in the category of the sciences and the first American woman to receive this award. Half of the coveted award was given to her and her husband, Carl, according to the Nobel Prize committee, "for their discovery of the course of the catalytic conversion of glycogen." The other half of the award was given to Bernardo Houssay. She received only two nominations for the Nobel candidacy, both were from Nobel Prize recipient Joseph Erlanger. Through the years, she nominated several other scientists for the Nobel Prize, including three nominations for 1953 Nobel Prize recipient Han Adolf Krebs. Born in Prague, which was then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, she was homeschooled before entering a private girls' school. She had a Jewish ancestry and had the advantage of having a scientist for a father and a grandfather, who taught her science early in her life. Although she had an interest in studying medicine, she lacked prerequisites for entry to the medical school, hence in one year, she learned the equivalent of eight years of Latin, five years of science, and five years of mathematics. After graduation, she entered in 1914 the Medical School of the German University of Prague. For a woman to enter medical school in eastern Europe during this period of history was an achievement. After meeting her husband at the university, the two newly-weds earned medical degrees from the German University of Prague in 1920. She had converted to the Roman Catholic faith for her marriage. During World War I while her husband was in the military, she had a health decline related to not having available nourishment for a long period of time. She worked two years in a pediatric hospital in Austria, where she published papers on her research with blood disorders. For political reasons, the couple emigrated to the United States in 1922, where they joined the staff of the Institute for the Study of Malignant Disease in Buffalo, New York. Many facilities refused to hire her and her husband together as a team. During this time, she published eleven scientific research papers as the sole author, in addition to the fifty papers written by the couple jointly. They became naturalized American citizens in 1928. After joining the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri in 1931, they discovered in 1936 a phosphate-containing form of the simple sugar glucose and its importance to carbohydrate metabolism. Her research found that a particular enzymatic defect in the metabolism of sugar is a human genetic disease, which means diabetes occurs in families. Even as students, the two collaborated on their research, publishing their first paper on an immunological study of the complement of human serum. They contributed many articles to "The Journal of Biological Chemistry" and other scientific periodicals. Her rank and salary were much lower than her husband's position, even though she was doing the same research as her husband. She was made an associate professor of Research Biological Chemistry and Pharmacology in 1943 and was promoted in 1947 to full professor, a post she held until her death in 1957. Besides the Nobel Prize, she received in 1948 the Garvan Medal and the St. Louis Award; the Sugar Research Prize in 1950; and the Borden Award in 1951. She was given honorary Doctor of Science degrees from Boston University in 1948; Smith College, an elite women's college in 1949; Yale University in 1951; Columbia University in New York City in 1954; and the University of Rochester in New York in 1955. She was appointed by President Harry S. Truman to the National Science Foundation's Board of Directors. The couple belonged to many scientific societies including the American Society of Biological Chemists, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Chemical Society and the American Philosophical Society. Although her husband was elected as a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in London and given an honorary degree from Cambridge University in England, she was overlooked for this honors reasoning that she was a woman. Her Nobel Prize biography was merged into her husband's biography; she did not have a separate one written, free from listing her husband's information and honors. After a ten-year battle with Myelosclerosis, a rare bone marrow cancer, she died. Early in her career while researching Malignant Disease, she may have been overexposed to x-rays, which can cause this cancer. With her death only ten years after her Nobel Prize, she may have had more international honors if she had lived longer. The couple had one son. The United States Postal Service issued a postage stamp in 2008 honoring the couple. The stamp became a rare collector's item as the chemical formula of glucose-1-phosphate was printed incorrectly. Today, she is recognized as a pioneer woman in the science community and women's rights. The couple have cenotaphs Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri. Her ashes were scattered.