CORI, GERTY THERESA

CORI, GERTY THERESA (née Radnitz; 1896–1957), Nobel laureate in medicine and physiology. Cori was born in Prague, where she graduated in medicine from the German University in 1920. That year she married her fellow student and lifelong scientific collaborator, Carl Cori, and converted to Catholicism from Judaism. The Coris joined the staff of the New York State Institute for the Study of Malignant Disease in Buffalo, New York (1922–31), before moving to Washington University, St. Louis, in 1931 where she was professor of biochemistry from 1947 until her death. The Coris became U.S. citizens in 1928. They were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1947 (shared with Bernardo Houssay) for their work on carbohydrate metabolism in which they discovered how glucose is stored as glycogen in the liver and muscles, and broken down to glucose as an energy source (a process termed the Cori cycle). They also described the effects of insulin and other hormones on glucose metabolism. The Coris' honors included election to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. (Michael Denman (2nd ed.)