Dr. Ruth Kirschstein was the first woman at NIH to head an institute (the National Institute of General Medical Sciences [NIGMS]) and the first woman to serve as acting Director of the NIH (in 1993 and again in 2000).

Ruth Kirschstein was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1926. Her father’s family immigrated from a village near the borders of Poland and Russia when he was eight years old. Her father grew up to become a chemist who inspired in her an interest in science and a love of music. Her mother was a public school teacher. Dr. Kirschstein received her B.A. magna cum laude from Long Island University in 1947 and her M.D. from Tulane University School of Medicine in 1951. 

Dr. Kirschstein came to the NIH in 1955 with her husband, pathologist Dr. Al Rabson. She researched cancer viruses early in her career and then live-virus vaccines: polio vaccine, measles vaccine, and rubella vaccine. In 1955, the year following a field trial that showed the Salk inactivated (killed) polio vaccine to be safe and effective, DBS licensed several firms to produce the vaccine. One, Cutter Laboratories, accidentally released vaccine that retained live polio virus, resulting in 260 paralytic cases of the disease, a disaster that caused panic among parents and scientists alike.

In the following years, Dr. Kirschstein’s polio investigations paved the way for safer vaccines, both the killed vaccine and live, attenuated oral polio vaccine.  She and her colleagues shed light on the pathogenesis of the polio virus and developed a standardized test involving precise, experimental inoculation of vaccine matter. It served as the basis for the testing DBS conducted on every lot of polio vaccine produced and the laboratory instructed vaccine producers and others that needed to know the procedure from around the world.