Vera Danchakoff was a Russian anatomist, cell biologist and embryologist. In 1908 she was the first woman in Russia to be appointed as a professor and she became a pioneer in stem cell research. Danchakoff was born in St Petersburg where her parents wanted her to study music or drawing, she left home to take a degree in natural sciences before moving to Lausanne University, for a medical degree, producing her thesis in 1906. Returning to Russia she took a Russian medical degree at Kharkov University, and then became the first woman to be awarded a doctorate in medical sciences at the St Petersburg Academy of Medicine – Russia's first medical college for women. In 1915 Danchakoff emigrated to the United States where she was politically active, writing as the New York correspondent of the Moscow newspaper, and by helping the American Relief Administration with publicizing the difficulties of Soviet scientists in working in Russia during the Great War. She was a talented pianist. In 1908 Danchakoff became an assistant professor in histology and embryology at Moscow University – the first woman to become a professor in Russia. Emigrated to the United States where she first worked at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York City. Then at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, she was "instructor in anatomy" at a time when women were first being allowed admittance as students. In a 1916 lecture she said the erythrocytes, the small lymphocytes, the different leucocytes, the wandering cells of the connective tissue, the mast cells, and the plasma cells - all these cells are different cell. In 1908 Danchakoff became an assistant professor in histology and embryology at Moscow University – the first woman to become a professor in Russia. She emigrated to the United States where she first worked at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York City. Then at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, she was "instructor in anatomy" at a time when women were first being allowed admittance as students. In his 2001 keynote address to the Acute Leukemia Forum Marshall Lichtman described her presentation as an "extraordinary lecture" and considered that "The rest of the century has been spent filling in the details of experimental insights!". For these reasons Danchakoff has sometimes been called the "mother of stem cells. Photographs published by Danchakoff in American Journal of Anatomy in 1916. In 1916 Danchakoff and James Bumgardner Murphy independently reported on a surprising discovery concerning the chick embryo – one that turned out to be of great importance. When the embryo was injected with adult lymphocytes the spleen greatly enlarged. With other types of cell this did not occur. Murphy's and Danchakoff's explanations for the effect were wrong but much later these observations led to an understanding of lymphocyte migration and graft-versus-host disease. By 1919 Danchakoff was a full professor of anatomy in Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons. In 1934 she left Columbia and until 1937 worked in the Department of Histology and Embryology at the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences. In 1938 she conducted important experiments. Danchakoff published many books as well as scientific papers. in 1949 and Effects of cancer provoking chemical in 1950. She became a pioneer in stem cell research.

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