Elizabeth Blackwell. (b. 1821, Bristol, England; d. 1910, Sussex, England) In 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States. The English-born physician opened the field for other women while founding important medical institutions such as the New York Infirmary for Women and Children in 1857, and the National Health Society in 1871.
An assay is an investigative (analytic) procedure in laboratory medicine, pharmacology, environmental biology and molecular biology for qualitatively assessing or quantitatively measuring the presence or amount or the functional activity of a target entity (the analyte).
The assay usually aims to measure an intensive property of the analyte and express it in the relevant measurement unit (e.g. molarity, density, functional activity in enzyme international units, degree of some effect in comparison to a standard, etc.).