Gerty T. Cori, née Radnitz, was born in 1896 to a Jewish family living in Prague. She was first tutored at home, and then attended the girls’ lyceum from the age of ten. As she expressed the desire to study chemistry at university, she needed to pass a school leaving examination. So, after studying at the lyceum in 1912–1914 she took private lessons in Latin and the natural sciences and, as an externist, took and passed the oral and written leaving examination at the Higher State Grammar School in Děčín in June and July 1914. She then enrolled to study medicine at the Prague Medical Faculty, where she met her husband-to-be, Carl Cori.
After the end of World War I and after completing their studies, in 1920 the young engaged couple moved to Vienna, where they got married and embarked upon their scientific careers. However, they soon left Vienna and Europe and settled for good in the United States, first in Buffalo and then at Washington University in St. Louis. There, the Coris succeeded in discovering the course of the catalytic conversion of glycogen, for which they were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in 1947. Gerty Cori died in 1957 of myelosclerosis, a fatal disease of the bone marrow, caused by the radiation to which she was exposed during her research into the effects of X-rays on the skin and the body’s metabolism.
The commemorative plaque was unveiled in October 2019 to mark the 120th anniversary of the establishment of the Grammar School in Děčín.
