Alison McCook | May 2, 2010 | 2 min read
RIP, sickle-cell scientistHelen M. Ranney, the first woman to head a department of medicine at a U.S. medical school, died last month at age 89. Ranney was a pioneer in the field of genetics, studying the inheritance of sickle cell disease in the early 1950s, when scientists knew little about DNA. To identify carriers of the sickle cell gene, she adapted gel electrophoresis to quickly and easily separate cells with normal hemoglobin from distorted, sickle-shaped cells, since adult carriers conta