Ele Willoughby, PhD
Happy birthday to #biochemist Marie Maynard Daly (1921-2003), 1st Black woman to earn a PhD in #chemistry in the US! She made important research contributions to our understanding of the biochemisty of the cell nucleus & cardiovascular issues & the chemistry of histones & protein synthesis. She established that “no bases other than adenine, guanine, thymine, and cytosine were present in appreciable amounts” in DNA - 🧵
#womenInSTEM #BlackInSTEM #histsci #printmaking #linocut #histmed #MastoArt
Apr 16, 2025 at 12:32pmWeb
Show threadEle Willoughby, PhDApr 16, 2025
research which was cited when Watson and Crick accepted the Nobel Prize for the structure of DNA. She did some of the earliest work on the relationship between diet & cardiovascular health. She was the first to show how cholesterol could clog arteries & that hypertension lead to atherosclerosis; these were invaluable discoveries in our understanding of heart attacks & work to lower the risk. She also did early work linking smoking & hypertension. 🧵2/n
Show threadEle Willoughby, PhDApr 16, 2025
Later she made studies of the uptake of creatine by muscle cells, which is important to understanding the recycling systems of muscles.⁠
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She was also a cancer scientist with the Health Research Council of New York from 1962 - 1972. She served on the board of governors of the New York Academy of Science. She was also active in student recruitment and in professional societies & the NAACP & National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women. She was a Fellow of 🧵3/n
Show threadEle Willoughby, PhDApr 16, 2025
the American Association for the Advancement of Science.⁠
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After retirement in 1986, she donated money to Queens College to create scolarships for Black students in physics & chemistry, in honour of her father. She served on the Commision for Science & Technology for New York City for three years, before moving with her husband Vincent Clark to their East Hampton summer home & then to Sarasota, Florida. In 1999, the National Technical Association recognized Daly as one of the 🧵4/5
Show threadEle Willoughby, PhDApr 16, 2025

top 50 women in STEM. She was devoted to playing the flute, gardening & her dogs; when her cancer made flute playing difficult, she learned the guitar. She died in 2003, at the age of 82, in New York City.

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https://minouette.etsy.com/listing/978691118