.
Always
interesting what one finds on the internet when searching for something else.
I came across an article about a nun, who should be better known than she is, as her contribution to modern science is phenomenal.
The
discovery of DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, was a groundbreaking step in
understanding the building blocks of all living creatures. DNA is a molecule in
each cell that bears the genetic instructions for the development and
reproduction of living organisms, including viruses.
In 1962,
Francis Crick (British), James Watson (American), and Maurice Wilkins (New Zealander) received the Nobel Prize for
discovering the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule. Yet this work
could not have been done without the discoveries of other scientists,
many of whose contributions have gone unrecognized. A Dominican nun and a
professor of chemistry at Siena Heights University,
Adrian, Michigan
was one of these unsung geniuses.
SISTER MIRIAM MICHAEL STIMSON, O.P. (December 24, 1913 – June 17,
2002). Her obituary notes:
“Her early
success in chemistry, working on early research examining cells, led to an
invitation to lecture at the Sorbonne in Paris.
She was the second woman to lecture there; the first was Marie Curie, and the
first woman invited to lecture at Notre
Dame University.
She later
received international recognition for her early work with the spectroscope, a
tool used for analyzing chemicals, and wrote manuals for using the instrument.”
Sister
Miriam also worked on wound-healing hormones, helping to create Preparation H. She
established a research laboratory at Siena
Heights in 1939, where
she researched cancer for more than 30 years. Known at Siena as “M2,”Sister Miriam introduced undergraduate research and an
addiction counseling program.
Sister’s
most significant contribution in cancer research was her solution that unlocked
the shape of DNA nucleobases. Jun Tsuji’s book “The Soul of
DNA” records:
“For lack
of knowledge of the DNA double helix, scientists were unable to understand the
genetic roots of cancer, and subsequently they were unable to develop effective
methods of treatment. In the early 1950s, scientists were on the verge of
discovering the DNA double helix and unveiling cancer as a genetic disease.
Stumped by the uncertainty regarding the shape of the DNA bases, the structural
and functional “soul” of DNA, the male-dominated scientific establishment –
from James Watson and Francis Crick to Linus Pauling – proposed models of DNA
that were, in effect, inside out. In contrast, a woman, Sister Miriam Michael
Stimson, OP, an Adrian Dominican sister and chemist, dared to imagine a
solution to the DNA base problem. Using potassium bromide (KBr) to prepare the
DNA bases for analysis by infrared spectroscopy, Sister Miriam Michael
successfully developed a chemical method that affirmed the structure of the DNA
bases and of the double helix itself.”
Sister
Miriam saw her scientific work as a means of discovering truth that would lead
us closer to God. Indeed, DNA investigations led prominent atheist philosopher
Antony Flew to affirm God’s existence:
“What I
think the DNA material has done is that it has shown, by the almost
unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life),
that intelligence must have been involved in getting these extraordinarily
diverse elements to work together. It’s the enormous complexity of the number
of elements and the enormous subtlety of the ways they work together. The
meeting of these two parts at the right time by chance is simply minute. It is
all a matter of the enormous complexity by which the results were achieved,
which looked to me like the work of intelligence.”
Marian Emma
Stimson was born into a devout Catholic family in Chicago on December 14, 1913. She attended Sienna Heights
College in Adrian, Michigan.
In 1935, she joined the Adrian Dominican Sisters, taking the name Miriam
Michael.
She
received a B.S. in Chemistry from Siena
Heights College
in 1936. She continued her studies at the Institutum Divi Thomae in
Cincinnatti, where she received her M.S. in 1939.
She then
joined the chemistry faculty at Siena
Heights College,
while working toward her Ph.D. at Institutum Divi Thomae, which she completed
in 1948.
She
remained at Siena Heights College
for most of her career, except for a stint at Keuka
College in New York between 1969 and 1978. She started
an undergraduate research program at the university. She chaired the
chemistry department from 1948-1968 and served as director of graduate studies
from 1978-1991.
Sr. Miriam
Michael Stimson died of a stroke in Chicago
on June 17, 2002. Sister
Miriam Michael believed that knowledge will lead us to God, “if we maintain a
disposition of humility and love.”
