It would have been a personal triumph for Marthe Gautier, an 88-year-old pediatric cardiologist and scientist living in Paris. On 31 January, during a meeting in Bordeaux, Gautier was to receive a medal for her role in the discovery of the cause of Down syndrome in the late 1950s. In a speech, she planned to tell an audience of younger French geneticists her story about the discovery—and how she felt the credit she deserved went to a male colleague, Jérôme Lejeune.
But Gautier’s talk was canceled just hours in advance, and she received the medal a day later in a small, private ceremony.
Read the full, original story: After More Than 50 Years, a Dispute Over Down Syndrome Discovery
