Her Stem Space

Contributions:

Nettie’s career had a late start; however, she still accomplished many things throughout her limited time. Interested in areas like structure and classification, Nettie’s primary studies first focused solely on small organisms and cells. Her first paper, published in 1901, was about the morphology and taxonomy of ciliate protozoa, and her paper focused on describing the organisms and classifying them based on their physical characteristics. However, after doing some work in that field, Nettie turned to cytology in which she published another paper in that field in 1904 with another geneticist, Thomas Hunt Morgan, who won a Nobel prize for his work in 1933.

Discovering X and Y Chromosomes:

She then continued her studies in cell regeneration, which led her to research how embryos were developed and how chromosomes function. She completed her research in her assistantship, which was given to her by the Carnegie Institute after being recommended by her former professor, Thomas Hunt Morgan, and Edmund Wilson. In 1905, her research that she completed in her position had finally paid off and she published a ground-breaking paper showing that the X and Y chromosomes determine an individual’s sex. She had come across this while observing mealworms and found out that males have reproductive cells with both X and Y, while females have only X. This incredible discovery had, at last, put a stop to the continued debate as to whether the sex of a person was determined by inherited characteristics or environmental factors at the time when the embryo was being formed. This discovery also was the first time that a specific gene was directly associated with a given chromosome. However, even scientists of that time did not hurry to recognize Nettie’s discoveries. At first, her discoveries were not appreciated because of the gender bias that existed in the scientific field at that time; however, her groundbreaking work eventually gained recognition and inspired scientists to explore and expand upon her findings. Another researcher, Edmund Wilson, made similar discoveries around the same time, but Nettie’s work made bigger advances in science and turned out to be correct. Many authors had unfairly given Wilson the credit for the discovery alone. Ultimately, Thomas Hunt Morgan is commonly recognized for discovering sex chromosomes, despite initially being against the discoveries of Edmund and Nettie. His praise also heightened due to his research on sex-linked traits in fruit flies and his Nobel Prize in 1933. Even though Edmund and Thomas had received their credit and praise for the discovery, Nettie was not given any. For example, while Thomas and Edmund were invited to present their theories at a conference in 1906, Nettie was not invited.

In conclusion, throughout Nettie’s life, she broke many gender barriers in science and made one giant step that has brought improvements in understanding and explaining sex determination. She is still a source of inspiration to the current genetic researchers as well as all the females who would like to establish themselves in STEM careers despite any obstacles that come their way.