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Tonight on #MitoMonday we briefly highlight the life and works of Dr. Anita Bauer Roberts, the mother of TGF-Beta #LateNightWithTheRutterLab #WomenInSTEM
Dr. Roberts was born on April 3rd 1942 in Pittsburg, PA. She obtained her BSc in chemistry at @oberlincollege. She then joined Hector DeLuca’s lab at @UWMadison and earned her PhD in biochemistry in 1968. She did her postdoctoral training at @harvardmed. 2/
Dr. Roberts then moved to a few different places: the Aerospace Research Applications Center in Bloomington, Indiana & then @IndianaUniv. In 1976 Dr. Roberts joined @theNCI & by 1995 she became one of the first female chiefs at the @NIH. 3/
It was at @theNCI where she established her incredibly fruitful partnership with Dr. Michael Sporn. She studied derepressed developmentally regulated genes with transforming oncogenic abilities. This culminated with the discovery of TGF-B. https://bit.ly/2Ze2z7X /4
This sparked a series of papers where Dr. Roberts purified, characterized, and identified its role in immunity, carcinogenesis, and wound healing. https://bit.ly/2Ze2z7X https://bit.ly/3bQaCus https://go.nature.com/2LDYaTA https://bit.ly/2WIBzvx https://bit.ly/3cLU6fY /5
Interesting Fact: During this period Dr. Roberts authored over 330 papers, and was the second most cited female scientist and the 49th most cited scientist worldwide in 2005. /6
Dr Roberts was awarded the @FASEBorg Award for excellence in science, was elected to the @americanacad, served as president of the wound healing society & was co-awardee of the 2005 @SusanGKomen Brinker award for scientific distinction for basic research. /7
On March 2005, Dr. Roberts was diagnosed with stage IV gastric cancer. Sadly she passed away on May 26 2006. She was 64. /8
“As basic scientists, we're all driven by our excitement in finding answers. We hope it ends up as something that becomes therapy. But that doesn't happen unless you have a basic understanding of the process." Dr. Anita B. Roberts. #MitoMonday #LateNightWithTheRutterLab 9/9
