Marthe Gautier

Marthe Gautier was a French doctor and gene scientist who discovered the cause of Down Syndrome. She was one of two women out of 80 students from all over France to pass the medical training entry exam for Paris’s best hospitals. Gautier trained to become a children’s heart doctor and was offered funding to study at Harvard. She then got a job at a lab learning how to grow cells, a new technology at the time. Once she returned to France, her skill did not work out in a job, so she took a job somewhere else. The head doctor, Raymond Turpin, was very interested in discovering the cause of Down Syndrome. He wanted to look closer at chromosomes,  which carry instructions for your cells, to look for anything unique. The only person in the lab who could do it was Gautier. So, after a closer look at the chromosomes, she discovered an extra pair. Gautier needed proof but did not have the correct tools, so she trusted a male colleague, Jérôme Lejeune .Her experiment was not returned. She later discovered an article was about to be published on her discovery, without giving her proper credit. She was eventually awarded a medal in the late 1950s and was planning to expose her work partner, Jérôme Lejeune, but the ceremony was canceled and was held a day later with a smaller ceremony to prevent her from doing that.  After her death, Jérôme Lejeune’s foundation credited her for her work. 
 References 

Category:Pages created with the Article Wizard from 2025