| Irena Koprowska (née Grasberg) | |
| Birth Date: | 12 May 1917 |
| Birth Place: | Warsaw, Kingdom of Poland |
| Death Place: | Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Nationality: | Polish |
| Citizenship: | Poland, United States |
| Field: | Cytopathology |
| Known For: | Leader in the field of Cytopathology |
| Prizes: | Papanikolaou Award(1985) |
| Spouse: | Hilary Koprowski (m. 1938; 2 children) |
Irena Koprowska, née Grasberg (May 12, 1917, Warsaw - August 16, 2012, Wynnewood, Pennsylvania) was a Polish-born pathologist in the United States. In 1985, she won the Papanikolaou Award.
She was the first woman to be named a full professor at Hahnemann Medical College, now Drexel University College of Medicine.[1]
Koprowska was born in 1917 to Eugenia and Henryk Grasberg, the latter of which owned a flour mill in Warsaw, Poland. Growing up, she (like her father) did not identify as Jewish or Catholic, but instead as atheist. [2]
She graduated from Warsaw University Medical School, in 1939. Around this time, Grasberg married Hilary Koprowski, a virologist who discovered the first effective oral polio vaccine. But she and Hilary, a Jewish man, were forced to flee Poland as the Nazi army began its invasion of Warsaw. [3]
She worked as a pathologist in Rio de Janeiro. She studied with Georgios Papanikolaou, at Cornell University Medical College. From 1970 to 1987, she was a professor at Temple University School of Medicine .[4]
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.[5] Dr. Koprowska was a founding member of the Inter Society Council of Cytology, which became the American Society of Cytopathology.[6] 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.