Elizabeth Lee Hazen
- @womxninSTEM
- Aug 24, 2019
- 1 min read
Elizabeth Lee Hazen
American Microbiologist
Aug. 24, 1885 - Jun. 24, 1975
Hazen is co-inventor, along with Rachel Fuller Brown, of the early antibiotic and anti-fungal Nystatin. Her research has been used to save infected trees and restore paintings with mould damage.
Elizabeth Lee Hazen graduated from the Mississippi University for Women with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1910. She taught biology and high-school physics in Jackson, Mississippi, and served as an Army diagnostic lab technician during WWI. She then studied further at Columbia University, completing a Master’s degree and a Ph.D. in microbiology by 1927. She was one of their first female doctorate students.
Hazen went on to be a successful microbiologist when working in the Bacterial Diagnosis Laboratory Division in NYC, tracing an outbreak of anthrax, locating sources of tularaemia and tracing the source of food poisoning from improperly preserved foods.
As part of her work at the Division of Laboratories and Research of the State Department of Public Health, Hazen worked with Rachel Fuller Brown to study fungal diseases that were widespread in the city, such as pneumonia and thrush. They then searched for an effective anti-fungal agent, and discovered nystatin, which was produced by a soil micro-organism found at a dairy farm. The development of nystatin allowed the use of the first fungicide safe for treating humans, revolutionising the use of antibiotics in medicine.
Hazen received a series of awards for her life’s work, including the Rhoda Benham Award of the Medical Mycological Society of the Americas. After her death, she was accepted into the National Inventors’ Hall of Fame in 1994.
Comments