{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2021}} {{Short description|Swiss zoologist and endocrinologist (1897–1982)}} [[File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Portret van de familie Ponse met visite in de tuin TMnr 60028997.jpg|thumb|right|Portrait of the Ponse family from the Tropenmuseum. Kitty Ponse is the baby pictured on the left.]] '''Kitty Ponse''' (5 September 1897 – 10 February 1982) was a Swiss zoologist and endocrinologist. She was a professor at the University of Geneva and received the Swiss Otto Naegeli Prize in 1961.
==Life and career== Ponse was born in Sumatra, then part of the Dutch East Indies, to Dutch parents in 1897.<ref name=wuest>{{cite journal|title= Kitty Ponse 1897–1982 |last1=Wüest|first1=Jean|first2=Marino|last2=Buscaglia|doi=10.1016/0016-6480(84)90053-4 |journal=General and Comparative Endocrinology|volume=56|issue=2|pages=330–331|year=1984|pmid=6392012|doi-access=}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://staff.fnwi.uva.nl/a.ponse/poppie.pdf|title=Les femmes dans la mémoire de Genève: du XVe au XXe siècle|date=2005|publisher=Éditions Suzanne Hurter|editor-last=Ziegler|editor-first=Erica Deuber|location=Genève|language=fr|chapter=Kitty Ponse|editor-last2=Tikhonov|editor-first2=Natalia|chapter-url=https://staff.fnwi.uva.nl/a.ponse/poppie.pdf|archive-date=22 November 2021|access-date=5 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211122213433/https://staff.fnwi.uva.nl/a.ponse/poppie.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> At the age of eight she and her family moved to Geneva, Switzerland, where she later studied science at the University of Geneva.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FlxsBgAAQBAJ&pg=PT1262|title=The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: Pioneering Lives From Ancient Times to the Mid-20th Century|first1=Marilyn|last1=Ogilvie|first2=Joy|last2=Harvey|publisher=Routledge|year=2003|isbn=9781135963422}}</ref> She completed a doctoral thesis at the University of Geneva in 1922 that focused on embryological development.<ref name=unige>{{cite web|url=https://biologie.unige.ch/en/the-section/the-hall-of-fame/|title=The Hall of Fame|publisher=Faculty of Science of the University of Geneva|accessdate=5 November 2021}}</ref> While the focus of her earlier research and publications was pure zoology, including tail regeneration in lizards, she later developed a particular interest in sex determination and sexual differentiation in amphibians.<ref name=wuest/> In the mid-1920s, she conducted experiments in which she successfully inverted the sex of toads;<ref name=wuest/> ''The New York Times'' carried a story about Ponse's work in 1926 with the headline "Says she changes the sex of toads".<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1926/02/26/archives/says-she-changes-the-sex-of-toads-biologist-exhibits-transformed.html|title=SAYS SHE CHANGES THE SEX OF TOADS; Biologist Exhibits Transformed Amphibians at the University of Geneva. MALES MADE TO LAY EGGS Females Shown to Develop Masculine Qualities Through Glandular Grafting|work=The New York Times|date=26 February 1926|accessdate=5 November 2021}}</ref> Her work on sexual differentiation in vertebrates was compiled in her 1949 book ''La différenciation du sexe et l'intersexualité''.<ref name=wuest/><ref>{{Cite book|last=Ponse|first=Kitty|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_UhBAAAAYAAJ|title=La différenciation du sexe et l'intersexualité chez les vertébrés: facteurs héréditaires et hormones|date=1949|publisher=F. Rouge|language=fr}}</ref>
Ponse's other publications in the field of endocrinology addressed the function of the thyroid gland, the biochemical pathways in steroid hormone production, the communication between the pituitary gland and the gonads. She also collaborated with French biologist Émile Guyénot on the first purifications of gonadotropin hormones from the pituitary.<ref name=wuest/> Ponse taught at the University of Geneva for over forty years and was appointed a professor of experimental endocrinology in 1961.<ref name=wuest/><ref name=unige/> She received the Otto Naegeli Prize in 1961 and the Montyon Prize of the French Academy of Sciences in 1950.<ref name=unige/> She was a cofounder of the journal ''Acta Endocrinologica'' in 1948.<ref name=wuest/>
In 2022, a street was renamed for her in Geneva (from rue de l’Université to rue Kitty-Ponse).<ref>{{Cite web |title=Rue Kitty-PONSE {{!}} Noms géographiques du canton de Genève |url=https://ge.ch/noms-geographiques/voie/geneve/rue-kitty-ponse |access-date=2022-12-16 |website=ge.ch |language=fr |archive-date=16 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221216020313/https://ge.ch/noms-geographiques/voie/geneve/rue-kitty-ponse |url-status=dead }}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}} {{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ponse, Kitty}} Category:1897 births Category:1982 deaths Category:20th-century Swiss zoologists Category:Swiss endocrinologists Category:University of Geneva alumni Category:Academic staff of the University of Geneva Category:People from Sumatra Category:20th-century Swiss women scientists Category:Swiss people of Dutch descent