Revisiting the Pathologist in the Basement

Lost Women of Science

A few important things have happened in the three years since we first aired The Pathologist in the Basement, the story of Dr. Dorothy Andersen, the first to identify cystic fibrosis. It’s safe to say that Dr. Anderson is now a little less lost. In Episode 1, Dr. Andersen sleuths her way to the discovery of cystic fibrosis, a fatal disease that affects the lungs, the pancreas, and a host of other organs. So, who was Dorothy Andersen, and how did she come to make this seminal medical contribution?