Helen F. Tucker

Helen F. Tucker
A young white woman with dark hair, wearing a dark dress with a wide, round lace collar detail
Helen F. Tucker, from the 1923 yearbook of Mount Holyoke College
Born
Helen Farnham Tucker

January 26, 1902
Swampscott, Massachusetts
DiedFebruary 25, 1986
Sarasota, Florida
Occupation(s)Biochemist, technical editor

Helen Farnham Tucker (January 26, 1902 – February 25, 1986) was an American biochemist. She taught college chemistry courses and published research with James Flack Norris and Birgit Vennesland in the 1930s and 1940s. She was a technical editor for Rohm and Haas in the 1940s and 1950s, and worked at Miles Laboratories in the 1960s.

Early life and education

Tucker was born in Swampscott, Massachusetts, the daughter of Charles William Tucker and Gertrude Cogswell Mason Tucker.[1] Her father was a chemist in the leather industry.[2] Two of her brothers also became chemists.[3][4]

Tucker graduated from Lynn Classical High School in 1919,[5] and Mount Holyoke College in 1923.[6] She completed a master's degree at Vassar College in 1925, with a thesis titled "The Temperature Co-efficient of the Photochemical Reduction of Ferric Chloride in Anhydrous Ethyl Alcohol".[7] She earned her PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1933,[8] with a dissertation titled "The effect of substituents on the thermal stability of certain derivatives of malonic acid".[9][10]

Career

Tucker was an assistant in the chemistry department at Vassar while she was a graduate student there.[11] She taught chemistry courses at Mount Holyoke and Russell Sage College.[2] She was an officer in the Philadelphia chapter of the American Chemical Society,[12] while she worked as editor of Developments Report in Chemistry, a publication of the Rohm and Haas, a chemical manufacturing company.[2][13] She moved to Indiana to work at Miles Laboratories in 1961.[14]

Publications

  • "The Reactivity of Atoms and Groups in Organic Compounds. XIV. The Influence of Substituents on the Thermal Stability of Certain Derivatives of Malonic Acid" (1933, with James Flack Norris)[15]
  • "The Effect of Supplementary Methionine and Cystine on the Production of Fatty Livers by Diet" (1937, with Henry C. Eckstein)[16]
  • "The Effect of Supplementary Lysine, Methionine, and Cystine on the Production of Fatty Livers by High Fat Diets Containing Gliadin" (1938, with Henry C. Eckstein)[17]
  • "The Effect of Supplementary Cystine and Methionine on the Production of Fatty Livers by Rats on High Fat Diets containing Casein or Edestin" (1940, with C. R. Treadwell and Henry C. Eckstein)[18]
  • "The Source of Pancreatic Juice Bicarbonate" (1941, with Eric G. Ball, A. K. Solomon, and Birgit Vennesland)[19]
  • "The Activity of Carbonic Anydrase in Relation to the Secretion and Composition of Pancreatic Juice" (1941, with Eric G. Ball)[20]

Personal life

Tucker died in 1986, at the age of 84, in Sarasota, Florida.[21]

References

  1. ^ "Tucker". Andover Townsman. May 25, 1934. p. 2. Retrieved October 8, 2023 – via Internet Archive.
  2. ^ a b c "A Place for Women's Patience". The Philadelphia Inquirer. 1950-06-11. p. 160. Retrieved 2023-10-09 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ^ "1933" MIT Technology Review 49(7)(May 1947): xxx. via Internet Archive
  4. ^ Lythgoe, Hermann C. (1947-01-20). "The Tucker Family". Chemical & Engineering News Archive. 25 (3): 164–166. doi:10.1021/cen-v025n003.p164. ISSN 0009-2347.
  5. ^ Schools, Lynn (Mass ) Public (1918). Annual Report of the Lynn Public Schools of the City of Lynn. Jackson & Phillips, Incorporated. p. 29.
  6. ^ Mount Holyoke College, Llamarada (1923 yearbook): 170.
  7. ^ Purcell, Elizabeth Runkle (January 1, 1971). "Graduate Education for Vassar". Poughkeepsie Vassar Alumnae Quarterly. p. 16. Retrieved October 8, 2023 – via NewspaperArchive.com.
  8. ^ "Most Prominent Figures at M. I. T. Graduation; Twelve Women in Procession". The Boston Globe. 1933-06-06. p. 12. Retrieved 2023-10-08 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ^ Tucker, Helen F. "The effect of substituents on the thermal stability of certain derivatives of malonic acid." PhD diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Chemistry, 1933.
  10. ^ National Research Council (U S. ) Research Information Service (1927). Doctorates Conferred in the Sciences. p. 24.
  11. ^ "Appointments, 1923-1924". Vassar Miscellany News. June 15, 1923. p. 10. Retrieved October 8, 2023 – via Vassar Newspaper & Magazine Archive.
  12. ^ Dunlap, Katherine (1950-04-08). "Plan Many Affairs for ACS Women". The Philadelphia Inquirer. p. 26. Retrieved 2023-10-09 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ^ "News from the Clubs and Classes: 1933". MIT Technology Review. 53 (7): xxix. May 1951 – via Internet Archive.
  14. ^ "'33 (class notes)". MIT Technology Review. 64 (5): 73. March 1962 – via Internet Archive.
  15. ^ Norris, James F.; Tucker, Helen F. (November 1933). "The Reactivity of Atoms and Groups in Organic Compounds. XIV. The Influence of Substituents on the Thermal Stability of Certain Derivatives of Malonic Acid". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 55 (11): 4697–4704. doi:10.1021/ja01338a066. ISSN 0002-7863.
  16. ^ Tucker, Helen F., and H. C. Eckstein. "The effect of supplementary methionine and cystine on the production of fatty livers by diet." Journal of Biological Chemistry 121 (1937): 479-484.
  17. ^ Tucker, Helen F., and Henry C. Eckstein. "The effect of supplementary lysine, methionine, and cystine on the production of fatty livers by high fat diets containing gliadin." Journal of Biological Chemistry 186 (1938): 117-123.
  18. ^ Tucker, Helen F., C. R. Treadwell, and H. C. Eckstein. "The Effect of Supplementary Cystine and Methionine on the Production of Fatty Livers by Rats on High Fat Diets containing Casein or Edestin." Journal of Biological Chemistry 135 (1940): 85-90.
  19. ^ Ball, Eric G., Helen F. Tucker, A. K. Solomon, and Birgit Vennesland. "The source of pancreatic juice bicarbonate." Journal of Biological Chemistry 140 (1941): 119-129.
  20. ^ Tucker, Helen F.; Ball, Eric G. (1941). "The Activity of Carbonic Anydrase in Relation to the Secretion and Composition of Pancreatic Juice". The Journal of Biological Chemistry. 139: 71–80. doi:10.1016/S0021-9258(19)51364-3 – via Internet Archive.
  21. ^ "News from the Departments". MIT Technology Review. 89 (7): 38. October 1986 – via Internet Archive.