Irena Koprowska

Irena Koprowska, née Grasberg (May 12, 1917, Warsaw - August 16, 2012, Wynnewood Pennsylvania, USA) was a Polish-born pathologist in the United States, and the first woman to be named a full professor at Hahnemann Medical College, now Drexel University College of Medicine. Koprowska was mentored by Dr. Georgios Papanikolaou the inventor of the "Pap smear", and went on to become a leader in the field of cytopathology. Dr. Koprowska was a founding member of the Inter Society Council of Cytology, which became the American Society of Cytopathology and which, in 1985, gave her its Papanikolaou Award. Additionally, she co-authored, with Dr. George Papanicolaou, a case report of the earliest diagnosis of lung cancer by a sputum smear. Grasberg married Hilary Koprowski, a virologist who discovered the first effective oral polio vaccine.