Leona Zacharias

Ruth Hurwitz Zacharias was born in New York City. Her family were Eastern European and her father was a mathematics teacher. In 1927, Zacharias graduated from Barnard College, where she majored in biology.[1] She moved to Columbia University for her doctoral research,[1] which considered cellular proliferation in grafted segments of spinal cord.[2][3] At the time, she was the only woman scientist at Columbia.[4]

Zacharias moved to Boston in 1942, where she was appointed a lecturer in opthalmic medicine at Harvard Medical School.[4] In the 1940s, there was an increase in the number of premature babies going blind shortly after birth.[4] The first case was documented in Boston in 1941, and was later documented as retrolental fibroplasia, a condition involving the growth of fibrous tissue behind the lens. After a few years, the syndrome was an epidemic. When Zacharias arrived at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Hospital, she worked alongside T. L. Terry. After Terry died in 1946, Zacharias joined the laboratory of V. Everett Kinsey, where she worked on the possible origins of retrolental fibroplasia.[4] In 1952, she summarized the erroneous hypotheses of possible causes.[5] By 1953, researchers around the world were investigating epidemics of retrolental fibroplasia, and it was learned that it was due to high levels of oxygen contained in incubators, which slowed the growth of blood vessels. When that oxygen was removed, the growth of new blood vessels pulled on the retina and detached. Together, Kinsey and Zacharias defined the causes and complications of the condition.[4][6]

In 1956, Kinsey was awarded the Lasker Award, but Zacharias' name was omitted from the list of contributors.[4] In 1968, she was made Principal Associate in Obstetrics. She held various positions at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the Department of Nutrition, Applied Biological Sciences and Brain and Cognitive Sciences.[1]

Zacharias met her husband on a blind date in 1925, and the pair were married in 1927.[7][8] Her husband, Jerrold R. Zacharias, was a nuclear physicist who was an advisor to Dwight D. Eisenhower.[9] She liked dogs, and owned a succession of poodles.[4] In 2023, Zacharias' story was documented by Katie Hafner in Scientific American.[4]

• LEONA ZACHARIAS; RICHARD J. WURTMAN (1 May 1964). "BLINDNESS: ITS RELATION TO AGE OF MENARCHE". Science. 144 (3622): 1154–1155. Bibcode:1964Sci...144.1154Z. doi:10.1126/SCIENCE.144.3622.1154. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 14148441. S2CID 71407659. Wikidata Q76817162.
• L. Zacharias; R. J. Wurtman; M. Schatzoff (1 November 1970). "Sexual maturation in contemporary American girls". American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. 108 (5): 833–846. doi:10.1016/0002-9378(70)90552-1. ISSN 0002-9378. PMID 5471242. Wikidata Q71572836.
• V E KINSEY; L ZACHARIAS (1 February 1949). "Retrolental fibroplasia; incidence in different localities in recent years and a correlation of the incidence with treatment given the infants". Journal of the American Medical Association. 139 (9): 572–578. doi:10.1001/JAMA.1949.02900260018005. ISSN 0002-9955. PMID 18123547. Wikidata Q80331039.