Barrier-breaking chemist helped to revolutionise home testing for diabetics
When Helen Murray Free entered college in 1941, young women enjoyed few professional opportunities upon graduation. For the most part, she said, they could hope to become secretaries, nurses or teachers. In keeping with those limitations, Free had enrolled at college in Ohio, planning to become an English and Latin teacher.
But when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, precipitating the US entry into World War II, her horizons shifted. As young men emptied out of college campuses to join the armed forces, their seats in science courses were suddenly vacant.
On the counsel of a dormitory housemother – and over the objections of a
Latin professor who declared that he could not understand ‘‘why this girl wants to give up the marvellous world of mythology to work in a smelly old lab’’ – Free changed her major to chemistry.
‘‘Just like that!’’ she told the American Chemical Society years later. ‘‘I think that was the most terrific thing that ever happened because I certainly wouldn’t have done the things I’ve done in my lifetime.’’
Free, who has died aged 98, went on to a long career as a chemist at Miles Laboratories in Indiana where, with husband Alfred Free, she developed a dip-and-read glucose test in 1956 that revolutionised diabetes care.
When she joined Miles Laboratories shortly after her college graduation, the company, which was later acquired by Bayer, was best known for its effervescent antacid Alka-Seltzer. She soon began working in the research laboratory headed by Alfred Free, whom she married in 1947, and with whom she collaborated for the rest of her career.
They were engaged chiefly in the chemistry of medical diagnostics, particularly the detection of glucose in urine as an indicator of diabetes. At the time, glucose tests were imprecise and cumbersome. A urine specimen was collected, then combined with a reagent in a test tube that was heated over a Bunsen burner. The reagent caused the sample to change colour according to the amount of sugar present in the urine.
Working with their laboratory colleagues, the Frees improved upon that method and then developed an entirely new glucose test that was more accurate, less expensive and easier to use. They dispensed with test tubes and created a dipstick – essentially a piece of paper coated with chemical reagents – that, when placed in a urine sample, changed colour to indicate the results.
‘‘It was Al who said, ‘You know, we ought to be able to make this easier and even more convenient than tablets, so no-one would have to wash out test tubes and mess around with droppers,’ ’’ she recalled.
With the introduction of Clinistix in 1956, diabetics could conduct glucose tests at home, rather than making regular treks to hospital. Other dipstick diagnostics followed, including tools for testing and managing kidney and liver disease.
‘‘The ease of testing and reading results with dip-andread sticks, along with their low cost of manufacture, means that they continue to save, extend, and better the quality of life for people . . . around the world,’’ read an explanation of Free’s National Medal of Technology and Innovation, presented by president Barack Obama in 2009.
Helen Mae Murray was born in Pittsburgh. Her mother died of flu when Helen was 6, and her father supported the family as a coal salesman. She received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1944. Decades later, she resumed her university studies and received a masters in healthcare management from Central Michigan University in 1978.
In her retirement, she chaired the
American Chemical Society and promoted science education, particularly for young women and underserved youths. ‘‘People always get little boys chemistry sets for Christmas. Give a little girl a chemistry set,’’ she said when she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2011. ‘‘Science is not a girls’ thing, but it should be. Once you find out the joy of discovery, nothing can beat that thrill.’’
Both Frees, who held several patents, were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2000, shortly after Alfred Free died. Survivors include their six children, 17 grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.
Free said that, when she and her husband set out on their research, they challenged themselves to think about ‘‘what can we do new for the future’’. A measure of their success came decades later, when she met a woman who wished to express her gratitude for the glucose test.
‘‘She said her husband was a diabetic and if we hadn’t done this he wouldn’t be alive today. We all cried.’’ –
‘‘Science is not a girls’ thing, but it should be. Once you find out the joy of discovery, nothing can beat that thrill.’’