Gerty Cori: The woman who put glucose on the map

Gerty Theresa Cori was the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1947). Born in Prague and trained as a physician, she emigrated to the United States in 1922. At Washington University in St. Louis, she built a career marked by rigor and perseverance, despite nepotism rules and gender barriers that delayed her academic recognition until the very year of the Nobel Prize.

Her research transformed the understanding of carbohydrate metabolism. Together with Carl, she described the Cori cycle, which explains how lactate generated in the muscle during exercise returns to the liver to be converted into glucose, thus closing an essential circuit for energy balance. She also identified the so-called Cori ester (glucose-1-phosphate), a key intermediate in glycogen synthesis and degradation, and helped clarify the role of enzymes such as glycogen phosphorylase.

The impact of her work extends to diabetology and glycogen storage diseases: her findings provided a mechanistic basis for understanding blood glucose regulation, states of hyper/hypoglycemia, and enzymatic defects in diseases such as Cori/Forbes disease. Beyond the laboratory, Gerty was an influential mentor and a role model for generations of women scientists, demonstrating that excellence and collaboration can open paths even in adverse contexts.

Glycoscience—the study of carbohydrates and their functions in processes such as cell recognition, signaling, and immune response—is a cornerstone for understanding diseases and designing therapies.

At CymitQuimica we support this field with high-quality monosaccharides, oligosaccharides, polysaccharides, glycoconjugates, and specific reagents, designed for research on the structure and function of sugars in biological systems. Explore the Glycoscience category in our catalog.

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