Mildred Cohn, 96, scientist

Mildred Cohn, 96, professor emeritus of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, died of pneumonia Oct. 12 at Penn Presbyterian Medical School.

Dr. Cohn was designated a career investigator by the American Heart Association, which funded her studies of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). All cellular processes, including in the heart, require ATP as a primary energy source, and Dr. Cohn pioneered the use of nuclear magnetic resonance to research complex enzyme-ATP interactions.

In 1983, she was among 12 scientists to receive the National Medal of Science from President Ronald Reagan. Among her many other honors, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society, where her research papers will be archived. She received honorary doctorates from nine universities, including Penn and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel; she also served on the institute's board. This month, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

Dr. Cohn's portrait is one of handful of portraits of women to hang on the walls of Penn's medical school, where she taught for 25 years. She is wearing a pastel floral-printed dress because she wanted to stand out among all the dark-suited men, her daughter Laura Primakoff said.

In 1964, an Inquirer article about her accomplishments was headlined, "Woman researcher adds new career to homemaking." She had to overcome sex discrimination to have an impact as a prominent scientist, her daughter said. She wanted to break down barriers for others, Primakoff said.

In the 1980s, Dr. Cohn told an interviewer for an academic publication, "The most important aspect of my career is that it has been fun." She had a passion for science and exercising her brain, her daughter said. She enjoyed detective novels and the Law & Order television series because she liked solving mysteries.

After retiring from Penn in 1985, Dr. Cohn continued to write and to collaborate with scientists for a decade. She maintained her office at Penn and attended seminars and lectures there until a few months ago.

The daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants, Dr. Cohn earned a bachelor's degree from Hunter College in New York in 1931. She earned a doctorate in physical chemistry in 1938 from Columbia University, where she met her husband, Henry Primakoff, a physicist.

She was a researcher at Washington University in St. Louis before joining Penn's medical faculty in 1960. From 1982 to 1985, she was also a senior scientist at Fox Chase Cancer Center.

Dr. Cohn and her husband raised three children in Narberth. Several years after his death in 1983, she moved to Rittenhouse Square.

She grew up in New York City and loved Center City, her daughter said. She walked to the theater, the Kimmel Center, and restaurants, and took the bus to Penn, Primakoff said.

In addition to Primakoff, Dr. Cohn is survived by a son, Paul; another daughter, Nina Rossomando; six grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

A service was private. Dr. Cohn donated her body to science.

Memorial donations may be made to the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science for the establishment of a Mildred Cohn Memorial Fund, 633 Third Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017.