Vera Danchakoff

Russian anatomist, cell biologist and embryologist, 1879-1950

Vera Mikhaĭlovna Danchakoff^{[note 1]} (née Grigorevskaya, March 21, 1879 – September 22, 1950) was an anatomist, cell biologist and embryologist from the Russian Empire. In 1908 she was the first woman in the Russian Empire to be appointed as a professor and she became a pioneer in stem cell research. She emigrated to the United States in 1915 where she was a leading exponent of the idea that all types of blood cell develop from a single type of cell. She has sometimes been called "the mother of stem cells". She later returned to Europe to continue with her research.

Early life

Danchakoff was born in

Lausanne University for a medical degree, producing her thesis in 1906.^[1][2][3]

Returning to Russia she took a Russian medical degree at

Kharkov University and then became the first woman to be awarded a doctorate in medical sciences at the St Petersburg Academy of Medicine – Russia's first medical college for women.^[3]

She married and her daughter, Vera Evgenevna, was born in 1902 in

Russian famine of 1921–22 Danchakoff appealed for food parcels to be sent to Russia by publicizing the correspondence she had been receiving from scientific colleagues in Russia. Although internationally eminent, they had been denounced as "parasites and idlers" and were dying of starvation.^[8]

At the time there was a strong Russian émigré community in New York and, with her husband, Danchakoff hosted lavish gatherings of friends. She was a talented pianist and she took part in the musical evenings of Juan and Olga Codina, who were professional singers. She used to look after their daughter

Serge Prokofiev.^[1]

Scientific career

In 1908 Danchakoff became an assistant professor in histology and embryology at Moscow University – the first woman to become a professor in Russia.^[7][9] In 1915 she emigrated to the United States where she first worked at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York City. Then at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, led by Thomas Hunt Morgan, she was "instructor in anatomy" at a time when women were first being allowed admittance as students.^[1][10] In a 1916 lecture she said

"... the

S2CID 85116407.^[11]

In his 2001 keynote address to the Acute Leukemia Forum Marshall Lichtman described her presentation as an "extraordinary lecture" and considered that "The rest of the century has been spent filling in the details of [her] experimental insights!".[12] It has been claimed that a paper of Danchakoff's is the first publication to use the term "stem cell", for example "These stem cells develop on the one hand into the small lymphocytes, and on the other hand into granulocytoblasts, and further into granulocytes".^[13] It has now been confirmed that hematopoietic stem cells give rise to all other blood cells.^[14]

For these reasons Danchakoff has sometimes been called the "mother of stem cells".^[7][15] However, in terms of the actual terminology, in 1909 Alexander A. Maximow wrote in German of "Stammzelle" for the same concept in his paper "The lymphocyte as a stem cell, common to different blood elements in embryonic development and during the post-fetal life of mammals" (English translation^[16]).^[17]

In 1916 Danchakoff and James Bumgardner Murphy independently reported on a surprising discovery concerning the chick embryo – one that turned out to be of great importance. When the embryo was injected with adult lymphocytes the spleen greatly enlarged. With other types of cell this did not occur. Murphy's and Danchakoff's explanations for the effect were wrong but much later these observations led to an understanding of lymphocyte migration and graft-versus-host disease.^[15]

By 1919 Danchakoff was a

Danchakoff published many books as well as scientific papers, possibly her last publications being Le sexe; rôle de l'hérédité et des hormones dans sa réalisation in 1949 and Effects of cancer provoking chemical substances on gravid guinea pigs and their fruits in 1950.^[22][23][24]

Notes

References