{{short description|American biologist (1869–1955)}} {{Infobox scientist | name = Helen Dean King | image = Helen Dean King (1869–1955).jpg | caption = | othername = | birth_name = | birth_date = September 27, 1869 | birth_place = Owego, New York | death_date = March 7, 1955 | death_place = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | burial_place = | education = [[Vassar College]]<br>[[Bryn Mawr College]] | fields = Zoology | years_active = | known_for = Breeding the Wistar laboratory rat | workplaces = [[University of Pennsylvania]], [[Wistar Institute]] | awards = Ellen Richards Research Prize of the Association to Aid Scientific Research for Women }} '''Helen Dean King''' (September 27, 1869 – March 7, 1955) was an American [[zoologist]]. She was involved in breeding the [[Wistar laboratory rat]], a strain of rats genetically homogeneous albinos intended for use in biological and medical research.
== Life and work == Born at [[Owego (village), New York|Owego, New York]], she graduated from [[Vassar College]] in 1892, and in 1899 she received her doctorate in [[philosophy]] from [[Bryn Mawr College]], with a thesis supervised by embryologist and geneticist [[Thomas Hunt Morgan]]. She had majored in morphology. She remained at the College after graduation as a fellow and student assistant in biology from 1897 to 1904.<ref name=":0">Ogilvie, M. B., & Harvey, J. D. (2000). The biographical dictionary of women in science: Pioneering lives from ancient times to the mid-20th century. New York: Routledge. {{ISBN|978-0-415-92038-4}}</ref>
King taught [[physiology]] at Miss Baldwin's School, [[Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania|Bryn Mawr]], from 1899 to 1907, was research fellow at the [[University of Pennsylvania]] in 1906–08, and served as an assistant in [[anatomy]] in 1908–09. After 1909, she worked at the [[Wistar Institute]], for more than 40 years, first as an assistant and eventually becoming professor of embryology in 1927 and remaining there until her retirement in 1949.<ref name=":0" />
She was also an assistant at [[Woods Hole, Massachusetts|Woods Hole]], [[Massachusetts]]. Her investigations dealt largely with problems of sex determination.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=King, Helen Dean |encyclopedia=New International Encyclopedia |edition=2nd |editor1-first=Frank Moore |editor1-last=Colby |editor2-first=Talcott |editor2-last=Williams |publisher=Dodd, Mead |date=1915 |volume=13 |page=240}}</ref>
King served as vice president of the [[American Society of Zoologists]] in 1937, and was associate editor of the ''Journal of Morphology and Physiology'' from 1924 to 1927 and editor of the Wistar Institute's bibliography service from 1922 to 1935.<ref name="Ogilvie1986">{{cite book|first=Marilyn Bailey|last= Ogilvie|title=Women in Science: Antiquity Through the Nineteenth Century |url=https://archive.org/details/womeninsciencean0000ogil|url-access=registration|year=1986|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=978-0-262-65038-0|pages=[https://archive.org/details/womeninsciencean0000ogil/page/108 108]–109}}</ref><ref name="Kaufman et al 1996">{{cite journal|last1=Kaufman|first1=Dawn M.|last2=Kaufman|first2=Donald W.|last3=Kaufman|first3=Glennis A.|date=1996|title=Women in the Early Years of the American Society of Mammalogists (1919-1949)|journal=Journal of Mammalogy|volume=77|issue=3|pages=642|doi=10.2307/1382670|jstor=1382670|doi-access=free}}</ref> [[File:The American journal of anatomy (1907-1908) (18154548025).jpg|thumb|Helen Dean King, “The Spermatogenesis of Bufo ''lentiginosus'',” Plate 1. Page from ''American Journal of Anatomy'', Vol. VII, 1907-1908.]] King participated in breeding the [[Wistar rat]], a strain of genetically homogeneous albino [[Brown rat|rat]]s for use in biological and medical research.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Clause|first=Bonnie Tocher|date=Summer 1993|title=The Wistar Rat as a Right Choice: Establishing Mammalian Standards and the Ideal of a Standardized Mammal|journal=Journal of the History of Biology|volume=26|issue=2|pages=329–49, SpringerLink|doi=10.1007/BF01061973|pmid=11623164|s2cid=12428625}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Inbreeding, eugenics, and Helen Dean King (1869–1955)|first=Marilyn Bailey|last=Ogilvie|date=1 September 2007|journal=Journal of the History of Biology|volume=40|issue=3|pages=467–507|doi=10.1007/s10739-006-9117-1|pmid = 18348398|s2cid=19971700}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|url=http://www.amphilsoc.org/library/mendel/1998.htm |author=Clause, B. T. |title=The Wistar Institute Archives: Rats (Not Mice) and History |journal=Mendel Newsletter |date=February 1998 |issue=7 |pages=2–7 |pmid=11619935 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061216054827/http://www.amphilsoc.org/library/mendel/1998.htm |archive-date=2006-12-16}}</ref>
She died at age 85 on March 7, 1955, in [[Philadelphia]], Pennsylvania.<ref name=":0" />
== Research == King's scientific research largely focused on studies of inbred rats, and she was particularly interested in human issues while using for this purpose data from meticulous experiments on laboratory rats. Through inbreeding, her rats were almost [[Zygosity|homozygous]] to each other, which facilitated research. In later years, she moved her focus to pursue research on gray Norway rats.<ref name=":0" />
== Awards ==
* Ellen Richards Research Prize of the Association to Aid Scientific Research for Women (1932)
== Selected publications ==
* King, Helen Dean. "On the weight of the albino rat at birth and the factors that influence it." ''The Anatomical Record'' 9, no. 3 (1915): 213–31. * King, Helen Dean. "Studies on inbreeding. I. The effects in inbreeding on the growth and variability in the body weight of the albino rat." ''Journal of Experimental Zoology'' 26, no. 1 (1918): 1–54. * King, Helen Dean, and Henry Herbert Donaldson. "Life processes and size of the body and organs of the gray Norway rat during ten generations in captivity." ''American Anatomical Memoirs'' (1929). * King, Helen Dean. "Life processes in gray Norway rats during fourteen years in captivity." ''American Anatomical Memoirs'' (1939).
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * {{Internet Archive author |search=("King, Helen Dean" OR "Helen Dean King")}} * {{NIE|title=King, Helen Dean |edition=2nd |year=1915}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:King, Helen Dean}} [[Category:Vassar College alumni]] [[Category:1869 births]] [[Category:1955 deaths]] [[Category:University of Pennsylvania faculty]] [[Category:University of Pennsylvania Department of Biology faculty]] [[Category:20th-century American scientists]] [[Category:People from Owego, New York]] [[Category:American physiologists]] [[Category:American women physiologists]] [[Category:Bryn Mawr College alumni]] [[Category:Scientists from New York (state)]] [[Category:American women academics]] [[Category:20th-century American women scientists]]