Nobel Laureate Spotlight: Maud Slye, cancer pathologist

Meet Maud Slye, the first in our series on women who were nominated for the Nobel Prize but never won.

Cancer pathologist
b. February 8, 1869  d. September 7, 1954
Year(s) nominated: 1923 by Albert Soiland
Achievements:

• One of the first scientists to suggest that cancer can be an inherited disease
• Developed new procedures for the care and breeding of lab mice
• Published two volumes of poetry

When Maud Slye began her work on the pathology of cancer, very few scientists believed that cancer was a genetic disease. Most experts thought that human cancers were either caused by viruses-like The Rous Sarcoma Virus, which had recently been implicated as the cause behind tumors in chickens, or a side-effect of rapid industrialization.

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