Liane Brauch "Lee" Russell (August 27, 1923 – July 20, 2019) was an Austrian-born American geneticist and conservationist. Her studies in mammalian genetics provided the basis for understanding the chromosomic basis for sex determination in mammals and the effects occasioned by radiation, drugs, fuels and waste on mice. Her research allowed better understanding of genetic processes in mammals, mutagenesis and teratogenesis effects on mammals, and knowledge of how these processes can be prevented and avoided. She determined that developing embryos were most vulnerable to the effects of radiation during the first seven weeks of pregnancy and therefore recommended that non-urgent diagnostic X-rays be taken in the 14 days after the onset of a woman's menstrual period, a standard that became internationally accepted in radiological practice. She was also the first to discover that the Y chromosome determines maleness in mammals. Her conservation activities resulted in the protection of many wild and scenic places, especially those near her adopted home of East Tennessee.
Early life Russell was born as Liane Brauch in 1923 in Vienna, Austria, to a Jewish household, the oldest of three children to Clara (Starer) and Arthur Brauch. Her father was a chemist and her mother was a singing teacher. From the age of 3 to 15, the family lived on the Wiedner Hauptstrasse, not far from the Vienna Opera. There were frequent musical gatherings in the apartment, and the family enjoyed skiing and other outings in the Alps. One of her childhood playmates was first cousin, Robert Starer, Austrian-born American composer and pianist. Her somewhat idyllic childhood abruptly came to an end on the evening of March 12, 1938, but her family stayed in Vienna even after the Anschluss. Through a secret scheme, which involved the surrender of her father's business to the Nazis, the immediate family (father, mother, younger sister and younger brother) were able to escape to London. She moved to the United States in 1941 and became a naturalized American citizen in 1946. She met zoologist William L. Russell during a college summer school program, where he was her mentor. They married and worked together as geneticists at Jackson Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Together they had two children, a son, David "Ace" (b. 1950) and a daughter, Evelyn (b. 1952).
Education Russell completed her secondary schooling in England. After the family moved to the United States, she earned an A.B. from Hunter College in New York City in 1945 and her Ph.D. in Zoology in 1949 at the University of Chicago. Her first job was baby sitting while she studied in college; after that she worked as a receptionist in a doctor's office after class.
Career Russell’s career began in 1943 when she became a research assistant at the Jackson Memorial Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine. Through this role, Russell learned more about genetics and met William Russell, a leading geneticist at the time. William later became Russell’s research partner and husband. In 1947, Russell and her husband moved to eastern Tennessee to work at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Ironically, this was the lab that was deemed the headquarters of the Manhattan Project - the World War II mission to create the atomic bomb. Russell arrived at ORNL two years after the United States of America bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The atomic bombs unleashed an interest in many scientists to study the impacts the bombs have on humans. Through the studies being conducted on the impacts of radiation, Russell became passionate about teratology - the study of congenital abnormalities and abnormalities. Russell and her husband utilized her passion for teratology to begin testing the impacts of radiation on mice. Their rationale for this was that mice are extremely similar to humans in that they share about 80% of their genes with humans and go through similar human processes. Eventually, Russell and her husband established the “Mouse House”. The Mouse House was home to 200,000 mice used for genetic research. Russell’s experiments with mice allowed her to make numerous discoveries about fetal development in humans. For instance, Russell discovered that a group of mice embryos who had been exposed to radiation at the same time all developed the same foot deformity. Translating this research to humans, Russell discovered that developing fetuses are most vulnerable to radiation during the first seven weeks of pregnancy. This discovery allowed doctors to advise their female patients who could potentially be pregnant to undergo non-urgent x-rays fourteen days after she experiences her menstrual cycle. This advice has been adopted by doctors around the world and has saved countless pregnancies. An additional discovery made by Russell was that the Y chromosome present in a mammal fetus made the fetus a male. Other scientists had discovered that the chromosomes a fetus has represents its gender, but Russell was the first to make the revelation about the connection between the male gender and the Y chromosome. Through Russell’s discovery, scientists were able to conduct additional research about genetics and genetic abnormalities through the Y chromosome. This also led to the discovery that the presence of a Y chromosome in a human fetus made the fetus a male. Russell’s successful career led her to receive numerous awards. In 1973, Russell was awarded the Roentgen Medal, presented to her by the University of Würzburg. A little over ten years later, Russell was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences which is one of the highest honors a scientist can receive in their lifetime. Finally, Russell was awarded one of the greatest honors as she received the Enrico Fermi Award from the United States Department of Energy. All of these achievements culminate in the ORNL creating a mouse research lab named after Russell and her husband - the William L. and Liane B. Russell Laboratory for Comparative and Functional Genomics.
Activism
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