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Women & Science Portrait Initiative

Louise Pearce, M.D.

Louise Pearce, M.D.

Louise Pearce joined the Rockefeller Institute in 1913 as an assistant to Simon Flexner and the Institute’s first woman to be appointed to a research position. A pathologist and physiologist, Dr. Pearce helped to devise a treatment for African sleeping sickness, a fatal parasitic disease. In 1920, she traveled to the Congo to field test a new drug called Tryparsamide against the disease. The drug cured about 80 percent of patients and became the standard treatment in its day. Shortly after her return, Dr. Pearce was promoted to associate professor. She continued in this position for 30 years, during which time she devoted her research to developing animal models for the study of human cancers.

Dr. Pearce received her bachelor’s degree from Stanford University in 1907 and graduated from the Johns Hopkins University Medical School in 1912. She was widely celebrated for her work in the Congo, receiving the Belgian Order of the Crown in 1921 and the King Leopold II Prize in 1953. The recipient of many additional awards, Dr. Pearce also served as President of the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania from 1946 to 1951, officially retiring from Rockefeller in 1950. She was a member of Heterodoxy, a feminist organization that was active in New York City in the early 20th century.