About Her Life

Born in Caldwell, Kansas, Gladys Ludwina Anderson Emerson (1903–1984) was an only child, born to parents of Swedish descent. While their daughter was still an infant, the Andersons moved to Texas, and 12 years later to Oklahoma. Emerson was an avid student, showing promise in mathematics, history, Latin, chemistry, and music. After high school, she enrolled in the Oklahoma College for Women (now the University of Sciences and Arts of Oklahoma), with the intention of becoming a teacher.

Offered assistantships in both chemistry and history at Stanford University, Emerson chose history. She received her master's degree in history, with a minor in economics, from Stanford in 1926. While working toward her master's, Emerson also managed to fit in courses in physical chemistry, never letting go of her interest in the sciences. In 1927, when offered a fellowship in nutrition and biochemistry at the University of California at Berkeley, she jumped at the chance.

Five years later, she received her doctorate from the school in animal nutrition and biochemistry. After a post-doctoral year at the University of Göttingen in Germany, Emerson returned to Berkeley. She took a position in the lab of Herbert M. Evans, director of the University of California's Institute of Experimental Biology. Evans had successfully identified and named vitamin E in 1922 but had so far been unsuccessful in isolating it.

For three years Emerson worked with Evans on the isolation of vitamin E from its natural sources. Finally, in 1936, the team successfully isolated from wheat germ oil a pure form of vitamin E, which they named tocopherol. Emerson and Evans went on to identify two more forms in which the vitamin could be isolated, alpha tocopherol and beta tocopherol. Their research paved the way for the subsequent determination of the chemical structure of tocopherol, which made artificial synthesis of vitamin E possible.

That vitamin E deficiency affected levels of fertility in laboratory animals had been known for years before Emerson began her research. While at Berkeley, she conducted research further strengthening the connection between vitamin E and fertility. She also she went on to demonstrate that, besides affecting fertility, a controlled dietary deprivation of vitamin E could cause a reaction akin to muscular dystrophy in lab rabbits.

In 1942 she was invited to join the Merck Institute for Therapeutic Nutrition in Rahway, New Jersey. There she began a research program on the whole B complex of vitamins. Emerson proved the link between vitamin B–deficient diets and abnormalities of growth and posture, the eyes, skin, liver, kidneys, and other internal organs. She also worked toward more effective methods of administering the vitamins.

In 1956 the University of California at Los Angeles invited Emerson to join their faculty as a professor of nutrition and chairperson of the home economics department. She accepted and, while assuming a teaching role, she also continued as an active researcher. By 1962 she had taken on the vice chair of UCLA's department of public health as well.

Among many other awards, Emerson received the Garvan Medal in 1952. This award, given by the American Chemical Society, recognizes “distinguished service to chemistry by women chemists.” She was also appointed as vice chair of the Panel on the Provision of Food in 1969 by President Nixon, and in 1970 served as an expert witness before the Food and Drug Administration in hearings on vitamins, mineral supplements, and food additives.

Adapted from: Bowden, Mary Ellen; Amy Beth Crow; and Tracy Sullivan. Pharmaceutical Achievers: The Human Face of Pharmaceutical Research. Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2002.