The Mouse Lady

In the 1910s, a relatively unknown cancer researcher named Maud Slye announced the first results of a study with the loftiest ambitions: to identify what causes cancer. To answer that question, the University of Chicago geneticist had bred tens of thousands of mice, enough to fill a three-story building. She carefully documented their ancestry and their morbidities and performed autopsies. And to Slye, her findings were clear: vulnerability to cancer was hereditary. If we wanted to, we could eliminate it. But Slye made some crucial mistakes along the way—and a number of enemies. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

You can listen to The Mouse Lady online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The Mouse Lady is an episode from Lost Women of Science by Lost Women of Science.

This episode is 29:41 long.

This episode was published on Nov 13, 2025.

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