page_title: Regina Kapeller-Adler
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Regina Kapeller-Adler / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Old Royal Infirmary from the Meadows Once part of the largest hospital in Europe under one roof, the Victorian sections of the former Royal Infirmary have been converted and incorporated into a modern residential development.
context_page_description: Regina Kapeller-Adler, born Regina Kapeller, was an Austrian biochemist who, in 1934, devised an innovative test for early pregnancy based on the detection of histidine in urine. As a Jew, she was forced to leave Austria following the country's annexation into Nazi Germany in the Anschluss and went to work with the noted geneticist Francis Crew at the Institute of Animal Genetics at the University of Edinburgh.
  She worked at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary during the Second World War and subsequently joined the pharmacology department of the University of Edinburgh and worked as a lecturer in chemistry. Towards the end of her career she worked in obstetrics and gynaecology. In 1973 she received the Golden Honorary Diploma, an honorary degree of the University of Vienna, which was presented to her by Austrian biochemist Hans Tuppy.
context_section_description: Kapeller-Adler obtained her doctorate in chemistry from the University of Vienna in 1923 and became a demonstrator at the Institute for Medical Chemistry of the University of Vienna in 1926. She was discouraged from pursuing a habilitation because she was a woman and Jewish, and worked unpaid. In 1934, she developed an innovative chemical test for early pregnancy using the detection of histidine excretion in urine that gained her international recognition.
  Kapeller-Adler began to study for a medical degree at the University of Vienna in 1934 while working part-time at the Biochemical Laboratory of the Health Insurance Fund from 1935 to 1936. Between 1936 and 1937, she was head of the Laboratory for Clinical and Medical-Chemical Diagnostics of the Sanatoriums Hera in Vienna.
  After the Anschluss in 1938, during which Nazi Germany annexed Austria, Kapeller-Adler and her husband lost their jobs due to being Jewish, and were unable to complete their studies at the university. In 1939, she moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, on the invitation of the English geneticist Francis Crew to work at the Institute of Animal Genetics at the University of Edinburgh, then the only pregnancy diagnosis centre in the United Kingdom. Her husband travelled with her and was briefly interned as an "enemy alien" before being released and starting a medical practice in Edinburgh in 1943.
  Kapeller-Adler was awarded the degree of Doctor of Science by the University of Edinburgh in 1941. She worked at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary from 1940 to 1944. Subsequently, she joined the pharmacology department of the University of Edinburgh and worked as a lecturer in chemistry from 1951 to 1964. Starting in 1968, she worked locally in obstetrics and gynaecology. In 1973 she received the Golden Honorary Diploma, an honorary degree from the University of Vienna, presented to her by Austrian biochemist Hans Tuppy.
caption: Former buildings of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary
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