The Resume

(August 15, 1896-October 26, 1957)
Born in Prague, Czech Republic
Birth name was Gerty Theresa Radnitz
Married fellow biochemist Carl Cori (1920)
Became a naturalized US citizen (1928)
Together studied carbohydrate metabolism
Jointly discovered the Cori cycle (aka lactic acid cycle) in which sugars are broken down in the muscles to produce lactic acid, which is transported to the liver and used to synthesize new sugars
Co-recipient (with her husband and Argentine physiologist Bernardo Houssay) of the Nobel Prize in Medicine (1947)

Why she might be annoying:

She chain smoked and 'dropped cigarette ashes constantly.'
The institutions that employed Carl discouraged him from collaborating with her.
When the USPS honored her on a stamp, the stamp showed the wrong formula for the 'Cori ester' (glucose-1-phosphate, an intermediate compound in the breakdown of glycogen that she and her husband discovered).

Why she might not be annoying:

Her hobbies included mountain climbing.
She suffered severe malnutrition in post-WWI Europe.
When her husband was hired as a professor by the School of Medicine at Washington University, she was offered a position as a research assistant at a tenth of his salary.
She was promoted to full professor shortly before she won the Nobel Prize.
She was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Medicine, and the third woman to win a Nobel Prize in the sciences.
She continued her research while suffering from myelosclerosis, a fatal cancer of the bone marrow.

Credit: C. Fishel

Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

• 20th Century Scientists
• C. Fishel's Profiles [Series 55]
• Catholics who are Partially Jewish
• I am a Jew who Converted to Christianity
• I am on a U.S. Postage Stamp [A-C]
• I Converted to Catholicism
• I Died in 1957 (Ranked: 61)
• I Earned a Doctorate
• I Have Bone Cancer
• I was Home Schooled
• Look at Me, I'm Postage
• Man's World
• Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (Ranked: 1947)
• Profiles 36001-36250 (Ranked: 36142)
• Scientists
• We Died on the Same Day (Ranked: 19571026)

Year In Review:

In 2023, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
In 2022, Out of 4 Votes: 25.00% Annoying
In 2021, Out of 9 Votes: 100% Annoying
In 2020, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
In 2019, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
In 2018, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
In 2017, Out of 5 Votes: 40.0% Annoying
In 2016, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
In 2015, Out of 20 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
In 2014, Out of 20 Votes: 50.0% Annoying