Wooster's Helen Murray Free Honored with Endowed Lecture

Helen Murray Free

Helen Murray Free, a 1945 College of Wooster graduate and a pioneering scientist who was inducted into the National Inventor's Hall of Fame in 2000, will be honored next month (April 25) with the inaugural Helen Murray Free Endowed Lecture, featuring Dr. Mary Lowe Good.

The Helen Murray Free Endowed Lecture Series was established by her children and endowed through the Al and Helen Free Foundation. Each year, this endowed fund will bring to the campus a renowned chemical scientist, who will interact with chemistry students at a technical level and present an all-college convocation on the contributions of science to the quality of life.

Free, whose research in clinical chemistry not only revolutionized diagnostic testing in the laboratory, but also in the home, developed the "dip-and-read" glucose tests for diabetics. She was awarded seven patents for her clinical diagnostic test inventions, and also helped to develop a product for diagnosing Hepatitis 'A' while working for Miles Laboratories. In addition, she provided invaluable leadership in the testing of newborn infants for genetic or metabolic disorders that might lead to mental retardation.

Throughout her career, Free has been an active advocate of science education. From 1987 to 1992, she chaired the American Chemical Society's (ACS) National Chemistry Week Task Force. In 1980, she was chosen as one of Wooster's Distinguished Alumni Award winners; in 1992 she received an honorary degree from Wooster; and in 1993 she was elected president of the American Chemical Society.

Free has authored more than 150 professional articles, and co-authored two widely used textbooks in the field. Her accomplishments have been recognized in a number of ways, including the awarding of the ACS Garvan Medal and the Professional Achievement Award in Nuclear Medicine from the American Society for Medical Technology, as well as the establishment of the ACS Helen M. Free Public Outreach Award.