"Purified Protein Derivative" Florence Seibert Signed 3.25X5.5 Card For Sale

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"Purified Protein Derivative" Florence Seibert Signed 3.25X5.5 Card:
$199.99

Up for sale "Purified Protein Derivative" Florence B Seibert Signed 3.25X5.5 Card. 

ES-1747

Florence Barbara Seibert (October

6, 1897 – August 23, 1991) was an American biochemist. She is best known for identifying the active agent

in the antigen tuberculin as a protein, and subsequently for isolating a pure form of

tuberculin, purified protein

derivative (PPD), enabling the development and use of a

reliable TB test. Seibert has

been inducted into the Florida Women's Hall of

Fame and the National Women's Hall of

Fame. Seibert was born on October 6, 1897, in Easton, Pennsylvania, to

George Peter Seibert and Barbara (Memmert) Seibert. At age three, Florence

contracted polio. She had to wear leg braces and walked with a limp throughout

her life. As a teenager, Seibert is reported to have read biographies of famous

scientists which inspired her interest in science. Seibert did her

undergraduate work at Goucher College in Baltimore, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1918. She and one of her chemistry

teachers, Jessie E. Minor, did war-time work at the Chemistry Laboratory of the

Hammersley Paper Mill in Garfield, New Jersey. Dr. Seibert earned her Ph.D. in

biochemistry from Yale University in

1923. At Yale she studied the intravenous injection of milk proteins under the direction of Lafayette Mendel. She developed a method to prevent

these proteins from being contaminated with bacteria. She was a Van Meter Fellow from 1921 - 1922 and an

American Physiological Society Porter Fellow from 1922 - 1923, both at Yale

University. In 1923 Seibert worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Otho S.A.

Sprague Memorial Institute at the University of Chicago. She

was financed by the Porter Fellowship of the American Philosophical

Society, an award that was competitive for both men and women. She

went on to work part-time at the Ricketts Laboratory at the University of

Chicago, and part-time at the Sprague Memorial Institute in Chicago.

In

1924, she received the University of Chicago’s Howard Taylor Ricketts Prize for

work she began at Yale and continued in Chicago. At Yale she reported a curious

finding: intravenous injections often caused fever in patients. Dr. Seibert

determined that the fevers were caused by toxins produced by the bacteria. The

toxins were able to contaminate the distilled water when spray from the boiling

water in the distillation flask reached the receiving flask. Seibert

invented a new spray-catching trap to prevent contamination during the

distillation process. She published her pyrogen-free process in the American

Journal of Physiology. It was subsequently adopted by the Food and Drug

Administration, the National Institutes of

Health, and various pharmaceutical firms. She was further

recognized in 1962 with the John Elliot Memorial Award from the American

Association of Blood Banks for her work on pyrogens. Seibert

served as an instructor in pathology from 1924-28 at the University of Chicago and

was hired as an assistant professor in biochemistry in 1928. In 1927, her

younger sister Mabel moved to Chicago to live and work with her, employed

variously as her secretary and her research assistant. During

this time, she met Dr. Esmond R. Long MD PhD, who was working on tuberculosis.

In 1932 she agreed to relocate, with Long, to the Henry Phipps Institute at

the University of Pennsylvania.

He became professor of pathology and director of laboratories at the Phipps

Institute, while she accepted a position as an assistant professor in

biochemistry. Their goal was the development of a reliable test for the

identification of tuberculosis. The previous tuberculin derivative, Koch's substance, had produced false negative results in

tuberculosis tests since the 1890s because of impurities in the material. With

Long's supervision and funding, Seibert identified the active agent in

tuberculin as a protein. Seibert spent a number of years developing methods for

separating and purifying the protein from Mycobacterium tuberculosis,

obtaining purified protein

derivative (PPD) and enabling the creation of a reliable test

for tuberculosis. Her first publication on the purification of tuberculin

appeared in 1934. Some sources credit her with successfully isolating the

tuberculosis protein molecule during 1937–38, when she visited the University of Uppsala, Sweden, as a Guggenheim fellow to

work with Nobel-prize winning protein scientist Theodor Svedberg.[5] She developed methods for derivative using filters of porous

clay and nitric-acid treated cotton. In 1938, she was awarded the Trudeau

Medal of the National Tuberculosis Association. In the 1940s, Seibert's

purified protein derivative (PPD) became a national[12] and international standard for

tuberculin tests. In 1943, Seibert received the first Achievement Award of University Women. She remained at the Henry Phipps

Institute at the University of Pennsylvania from

1932 to 1959. She was an assistant professor from 1932-1937, an associate

professor from 1937-1955, a full professor of biochemistry from 1955-1959, and

professor emeritus as of her official retirement in 1959. 

"Purified Protein Derivative" Florence Seibert Signed 3.25X5.5 Card

$199.99