Sabin was born in Central City, Colorado, in a mining site, where her father worked as an engineer. When she was 7 years old, her mother died, and soon after, she and her sister moved to live with their grandparents in Vermont. As a child, she wanted to be a pianist, but as she grew up, she set her mind on science. After graduation, she enrolled in the all-women Smith College and earned a bachelor’s degree in zoology. Afterward, she taught math at a high school to earn tuition money for graduate school.
At 25, Sabin attended Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her determination and observational skills caught the attention of the anatomist Franklin P. Mall, who encouraged her to focus on two significant projects – producing a model of a newborn’s brain stem and the development of newborn’s lymphatic system. Upon graduation, she gained an internship at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and in the following year, she won a fellowship in the Department of Anatomy at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. At 35, she began to teach in the hospital’s department of Anatomy, and within three years, she got promoted to an associate professor. At the age of 46, she was appointed professor of embryology and histology and became the first woman to serve as a full professor at a medical college. Four years late, she became the first female president of the American Association of Anatomists, where she worked mainly on researching the origins of blood vessels.
At the age of 54, Sabin left Johns Hopkins to concentrate on her research, becoming the head of the Department of Cellular Studies at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in NYC. That same year, she became the first female member of the National Academy of Science and a member of the research committee of the National Tuberculosis Association. She dedicated the next 12 years researching immune cells and the effects of foreign substances on the formation of antibodies.
After her retainment, she accepted a request to chair a subcommittee on health in Colorado. In this position, she lobbied for health care legislation. Working tirelessly for this cause, she assisted the passing of the “Sabin Health Laws,” which modernized the state’s public health as well as dealing with other health issues such as tuberculosis treatment, public sanitation, and the standardization of milk quality. At age 77, she became Denver’s manager of health and charities. Throughout the years, she published more than 100 scientific papers, numerous book chapters, two medical books, and a biography of her mentor Franklin Paine Mall.
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