• Worked with Elizabeth Hazen to invent Nystatin, the FIRST antifungal medicine in the world
• Nystatin has many applications, ranging from curing athlete's foot to cleaning mildew off priceless paintings
• Unable to afford college, a wealthy friend of the family paid for her to go to Mount Holyoke, where she earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry (Brown took it upon herself to pay the woman back)
• Met microbiologist and mycologist, Elizabeth Hazen, in 1948, and within a year they developed Nystatin, which was manufactured by ER Squibb and Sons under the name Mycostatin
• Instead of selling the rights to a pharmaceutical company, they founded the nonprofit Research Corporation of New York and patented the drug through that, generating $13 million that supported research grants in immunology, biochemistry, and microbiology, as well as bolstered programs that helped women in science
• Also worked with Hazen to develop a pneumonia vaccine that is still in use today, as well as discover the antibiotics phalamycin and capacidin
• She and Hazen were given many joint awards: the Squibb Award in Chemotherapy, the Chemical Pioneer Award from the American Institute of Chemists (they were the FIRST women to receive this award), and induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame
• On her own, Brown received the New York State Department of Health's Distinguished Service Award, and the Rhoda Benham Award of the Medical Mycological Society of the Americas
• Also the FIRST female vestry in her Episcopalian church

Hazen (left), Brown (right). Photo by Smithsonian Institution [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons

Bibliography: Harvey, Joy and Marilyn B. Ogilvie. "Brown, Rachel Fuller." The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, Vol. 1. Routledge, 2000, 191.
Vare, Ethlie Ann and Greg Ptacek. Patently Female. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2002. Print.

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