In Memoriam: Dottie Thomas, a story of scientific love
About a month ago, Dottie Thomas died at her home in Seattle, Washington. She was 92. You probably aren't familiar with Dottie Thomas or her life, but you may be familiar with her work! Along with her husband (and Nobel laureate Don), she was an integral part of the team that proved that bone marrow transplantation could cure leukemia and a host of other blood related disorders. I couldn't possibly detail her life history as well as this summary by Diane Mapes, but here is a summary of a life of love and science.
Figure 1: Cells of the blood, which come from stem cells in the bone marrow
Imagine it. The University of Texas at Austin, 1940. A rare snowstorm finds its way to the Lonestar state and shuts down campus for the day. A young Dottie Martin, a freshman journalism major, takes part in a campus snowball fight and nails a senior chemistry student in the face. That man was Don Thomas, who she would fall in love with and marry in 1942. They were married for 70 years until his death in 2012.
Throughout her life, she relented tirelessly with her husband Don at the University of Washington to show that bone marrow transplantation could be a highly effective treatment. She served as the chief administrator for the Clinical Research Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center for 15 years and was a devoted scientist, editor, and mother. Their research has saved thousands of people around the world, and her husband went on to win the Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1990.
"They were incredible workaholics - working 80 and 90 hour weeks -- but they were also incredibly good parents. Mom always had time for us no matter how busy she was. She went to the PTA meetings. She did the macaroni art." -Dr. Elaine Thomas, Dottie's daughter
The procedure mentioned above removes bone marrow from a healthy donor and gives it to someone without healthy bone marrow. Bone marrow is very important, as it contains very important cells known as hematopoeitic stem cells. These are the cells that will eventually transform into the cells in your blood. Having healthy stem cells is the key to having healthy blood cells! The treatment can be used in patients with leukemia, lymphoma, and other disorders of the bone marrow.
For the full story on the life of Dottie Thomas, click on the hyperlink above. In the meantime, I encourage you all to enter yourselves into the national bone marrow donation registry at http://bethematch.org/. 360 people a day are diagnosed with cancers of the blood - will you be someone's cure?
