Enjoying Research from
Canada to Argentina: Autobiography of a biomedical investigator (2007, English
version 2009, this version 2014) is the life work of Christiane Dosne
Pasqualini.
Christiane Dosne
Pasqualini (1920-) was born in Paris, raised in Canada, and lived her life in
Argentina due to her marriage to Rodolfo Pasqualini in 1944. Her father studied
chemistry in Paris under Marie Curie, and she ‘always knew’ that science would
also be her vocation.
She begins writing her
autobiography in 2003 when her husband’s health was deteriorating – and this is
interwoven into the first few chapters until his death in 2004. It is
interesting that she is writing of their meeting and marriage while grieving
his death after his seven years of illness.
Pasqualini’s first
experiments as a medical research assistant in 1939 were on stress and
adrenalin – the alarm reaction. She received a Rockefeller Fellowship to
Argentina in 1942, for a year during the war, working with Dr Houssay who won
the Nobel Prize for Physiology in 1947 for research on diabetes. She fell in
love with the country.
She writes to her
mother about three male friends in Argentina, and their potential as her husband
– describing their strengths and weaknesses – and it was Rodolfo she fell in
love with. The first movie she saw with Rodolfo – an army doctor with the rank
of Captain and 11 years older than her – was Casablanca (1942) with Humphrey
Bogart and Lauren Bacall. When they decided to marry, each of them had one and
only one condition – which they both kept throughout their entire lives. Her
letter to her parents announcing her decision arrived in August 1944 – the day
of the liberation of Paris and Marseilles. She believed in destiny – and
coincidences.
After moving to
Argentina permanently, she writes about her work on Vitamin C and hemorrhagic
shock, leukemia research, the 1955 Argentine revolution, her five children, her
husband’s successful medical textbook publications, the important scientific and
cultural changes over the years, and a running count of the number of mice in
her laboratory.
She describes a day in
her life with small children, Rodolfo as a father, and how she continued her
research career. Her first children were mirror-image twins Diana and Titania
in 1947, Sergio in 1948, Enrique in 1951, and Hector in 1953. Pasqualini does
not have a natural flair for humour, but there are some funny and witty
anecdotes.
She ends in 2007 at
the age of 87 when she says ‘it is hard to age elegantly.’ Nevertheless she was
still working as a researcher for a few hours each morning. And in 2016 she is
still living – at age 96.
Christiane Dosne
Pasqualini’s autobiography is written in two time frames (without confusion) –
the main timeframe is the chronological account of her life before 2003, and
the second timeframe is the current situation, her process and her progress as
she is writing (from 2003 to 2009). Hence one is past and the other is present.
This unconventional autobiographical style works well for her, and as a reader
it is noticeable but not distracting. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
This is a love story
on three levels: her love for medical research, her love of Argentina, and her
love for her family and husband Rodolfo.
I am posting this on 11 February - the United Nations International Day of Women and Girls in Science.
MARTINA NICOLLS is an international
aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of
Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet
(2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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