Season 2 - Episode 4

Helpful Links

⁠We will be highlighting the Association of Black Women Physicians. This is a non-profit that is committed to community health literacy and public health advocacy. This organization supports African-American women physicians such as social networking and mentorship. And why does this matter? Only 2% of physicians are Black women, this is important because there should be more African American women physicians. If you would like to donate to this organization please check out the link below.

https://www.blackwomenphysicians.org/donate

Transcript for the Podcast

Hello, welcome to Mirroring Medicine with Kodi and Isabel! Today’s podcast will discuss the various scientific inventions and contributions from prolific Black scientists in honor of black history month. The goal of this episode is to honor and uplift the thousands of Black scientists that have contributed to science for it to be where it is today. We will be highlighting some important figures, however this list is not comprehensive as there are thousands of Black leaders who have contributed to the advancement of science in spite of many racist policies in universities and schools that attempted to take away their shine. We encourage you to learn more about historical and current systemic racism and the way in which that leads to individuals limited in their scientific mobility. We will also be highlighting an organization that attempts to address these discrepancies.

I want to start off by mentioning that most people are aware that segregation was a pertinent aspect of U.S. history, and while that is understood as the complete separation of white students and people of color this aspect of the education system permeated every sector of academia. On July 2, 1964 segregation was outlawed including schools [1]. Before this time period it was very common for Black students to be barred entry into schools for white students. Because of this there are Historically Black colleges and medical schools that still exist. 

Potential Figures to talk about: 

Dr. Charles R Drew was a gifted surgeon who was born on June 3, 1904 and died on April 1, 1950. He is known as the father of blood banks as he was the first person to preserve blood plasma long term during WWII. Blood plasma is the clear yellow liquid that contains proteins and electrolytes in our blood. In 1938 Dr. Drew did his fellowship at the Presbyterian Hospital in New York and worked under John Scudder. They researched transfusion and shock therapy. Dr. Charles Drew became the first African American to earn a medical doctorate from Columbia University where his dissertation was titled: "Banked Blood: A Study in Blood Preservation." During WWII he led the Blood for Britain Project (BFB), which transported blood and plasma to Great Britain, which was under attack by Germany. This organization was the inspiration for the Red Cross. This was adapted from the American Chemical Society.

Dr. Jane Cooke Wright was born in 1919 and passed away in 2013. She was a pioneering surgeon and oncologist who spent all of her career advancing drug therapies for cancer. In 1945 Dr. Wright graduated with honors at New York Medical College. In the late 40s chemotherapy was mostly experimental. Dr. Wright worked at the Cancer Research Foundation at Harlem Hospital [4]. She was the first person to identify the drug Methotrexate, which to this day is still used to treat leukaemia, lymphoma and many other types of cancer [3]. Throughout her career she studied cancer therapies and is often referred to as the “Mother of Chemotherapy” along with other women who contributed to the study of chemotherapy.

Jewel Isadora Plummer was an American biomedical scientist that worked on the cure for melanoma, a type of skin cancer. She is the daughter of dr. Frank V. Plummer who was the first African American to graduate from Cornell Medical College. She received her masters of science and phd at NYU in 1950. She also was a professor at many institutions and mentored many African American students pursuing a career in medicine. She was the first person to use methotrexate for skin cancers [5]. She was also the first person to publish data on actinomycin D and its ability to cause a reduction of nucleoli in the nucleus of normal and malignant human cells [6]. Today this drug is used to treat a myriad of cancers. 

And now a word from the organization that has inspired this podcast. Today we will be highlighting the Association of Black Women Physicians. This is a non-profit that is committed to community health literacy and public health advocacy. This organization supports African-American women physicians such as social networking and mentorship. And why does this matter? Only 2% of physicians are Black women, this is important because there should be more African American women physicians. If you would like to donate to this organization please check out the link below.

Henrietta Lacks was born on August 18, 1920 and died on October 4, 1951. She was a southern african american tobacco farmer who had gotten a specific cervical cancer and tumor. Her cells were harvested off this cervical tumor from doctors at Johns Hopkins hospital and were given to a researcher who would culture this cell. These cells were important, as they were the backbone to the leading research in cancer today. They are now called HeLa cells. These cells have a characteristic in which they are “immortal” in which these cell lines can continue growing and replicating without an endogenous or internal stop signal like regular cell lines do. This is an important contribution to the field as experimenting on HeLa cells helped invent novel vaccines like polio, new information about cancer, IVF, cloning and gene mapping according to the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lack, a biography by Froque Khan [7, 8, 9] Although these advancements have benefited society as a whole, another ethical issue is at hand, they way that the doctors from Johns Hopkins have sent it to a lab to be processed and experimented on without her consent is a major ethical issue, as Henrietta Lacks did not have her rights expressed in an adequate manner. Today, medicine has learned a great lesson from this, having the right to autonomy and choice is the best course of action when utilizing a patient’s sample. 

Dr. Percy Lavon Jullien lived through 1899-1975 who actively participated in the synthesis and large scale production of steroids from plant compounds according to the Science history institute [10]. He succeeded against the odds at his time, in this era he grew up in, prejudice against African Americans was faced in all aspects of life. He was the first ever scientist along with Josef Pikl to perform the first total synthesis of physostigmine which was a medication used to treat glaucoma, its mechanism of action is where it relieved the high pressure from the eye’s aqueous humor. He mass produced stigmasterol from soybeans, which then can be used to synthesize progesterone. He also synthesized cortisone and hydrocortisone [11]. 

Alice Ball lived from 1892-1916 who had created a treatment for Hansen’s disease aka leprosy. This treatment included synthesizing and altering the oil extraction from the chaulmoogra tree for the treatment of leprosy, this chemical chaulmoogra resulted in the first treatment that was injected. This was the first hope prior to the development of antibiotics that could help save people from this disease of leprosy. [12] Leprosy, according to the World Health organization, is a chronic infectious disease caused by a type of bacteria, Mycobacterium leprae affecting the skin and peripheral nerves. Transmitted through droplets from the nose and mouth. This is curable through multidrug therapy and antibiotics. [13]

Finally, we would like to talk about one of the many injustices in medicine in which there is an article on “How We fail black patients in pain” in this article by the AAMC (more specifically Janice Sabin), there is a lingering bias from trainees that “black patients feel less pain.” According to this article, a meta-analysis was conducted from 20 years of studies showing that black and african american patients were 22% less likely than white patients to receive any pain medication. [14] This is crucial as careers in medicine need to be cognizant of the biases that we have in order to have equitable access to healthcare. 

Today we have talked about several potential figures like Dr. Charles R Drew, Dr. Jane Cooke Wright, Jewel Isadora Plummer, Henrietta Lacks, Dr. Percy Lavon Jullien, and Alice Ball as influential people in medicine. We also talked about the inequities in medicine by describing a lingering bias by those in medicine of how “black patients feel less pain” and we should circumvent that. We also highlighted this podcast’s inspiration which is the Association of Black Women Physicians who contribute to community health literacy and public health advocacy. Thanks for listening! 

Citations

1. National Archives and Records Administration. “Treasures of Congress: Page 24.” Archives.gov, n.d.,⁠https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/treasures_of_congress/text/page24_text.html⁠. Accessed 23 Feb. 2025.

2. American Chemical Society. “Charles Richard Drew.” ACS, n.d.,⁠https://www.acs.org/education/whatischemistry/african-americans-in-sciences/charles-richard-drew.html⁠. Accessed 23 Feb. 2025.

3. “The Story of Jane C. Wright: Pioneer of Blood Cancer Research.” Blood Cancer UK, n.d.,⁠https://bloodcancer.org.uk/news/the-story-of-jane-c-wright-pioneer-of-blood-cancer-research/⁠. Accessed 23 Feb. 2025.

4. “Physician Biography.” Changing the Face of Medicine, National Library of Medicine, n.d.,⁠https://cfmedicine.nlm.nih.gov/physicians/biography_336.html⁠. Accessed 23 Feb. 2025.

5. Stephan, Pam. “Jewel Plummer Cobb – Overcomer and Cancer Biologist.” Breastcancer.about.com, 29 Mar. 2010. Archived 26 Apr. 2012.

6. Warren, W. Black Women Scientists in the United States. Indiana University Press, 1999.

7. “NCBI Article.” PubMed Central, U.S. National Library of Medicine, n.d.,⁠https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3516052/⁠. Accessed 23 Feb. 2025.

8. “Importance of HeLa Cells.” Johns Hopkins Medicine, n.d.,⁠https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/henrietta-lacks/importance-of-hela-cells⁠. Accessed 23 Feb. 2025.

9. “[Title not provided].” Nature, 2020,⁠https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02494-z⁠. Accessed 23 Feb. 2025.

10. “Percy Lavon Julian.” Science History Institute, n.d.,⁠https://www.sciencehistory.org/education/scientific-biographies/percy-lavon-julian/⁠. Accessed 23 Feb. 2025.

11. “Percy Lavon Julian.” American Chemical Society, n.d.,⁠https://www.acs.org/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/julian.html⁠. Accessed 23 Feb. 2025.

12. “Learn about Alice Ball.” Oxford University Museum of Natural History, n.d.,⁠https://oumnh.ox.ac.uk/learn-alice-ball⁠. Accessed 23 Feb. 2025.

13. “Leprosy.” World Health Organization, n.d.,⁠https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/leprosy⁠. Accessed 23 Feb. 2025.

14. “How We Fail Black Patients’ Pain.” Association of American Medical Colleges, n.d.,⁠https://www.aamc.org/news/how-we-fail-black-patients-pain⁠. Accessed 23 Feb. 2025.