Florence Barbara Seibert

Florence Barbara Seibert (October 6, 1897 – August 23, 1991) was an American biochemist. She is best known for identifying the active agent in the antigen tuberculin as a protein, and subsequently for isolating a pure form of tuberculin, purified protein derivative (PPD), enabling the development and use of a reliable TB test. Seibert has been inducted into the Florida Women's Hall of Fame and the National Women's Hall of Fame. Early life and education Seibert was born on October 6, 1897, in Easton, Pennsylvania, to George Peter Seibert and Barbara (Memmert) Seibert. At age three, Florence contracted polio. She had to wear leg braces and walked with a limp throughout her life. As a teenager, Seibert is reported to have read biographies of famous scientists which inspired her interest in science. Seibert did her undergraduate work at Goucher College in Baltimore, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1918. She and one of her chemistry teachers, Jessie E. Minor, did war-time work at the Chemistry Laboratory of the Hammersley Paper Mill in Garfield, New Jersey. Seibert earned her Ph.D. in biochemistry from Yale University in 1923. At Yale she studied the intravenous injection of milk proteins under the direction of Lafayette Mendel. She developed a method to prevent these proteins from being contaminated with bacteria. She was a Van Meter Fellow from 1921 - 1922 and an American Physiological Society Porter Fellow from 1922 - 1923, both at Yale University.