Davison, only 19 years of age, had to wait 9 months in order to attend the university because their quota had already been filled for that semester.

[5] In 1951, both Janet and Donald Rowley completed internships at the United States Public Health Service's Marine Hospital in Chicago.

After earning her medical license in 1951, Dr. Rowley worked as attending physician at the Infant and Prenatal Clinics in the Department of Public Health, Montgomery County, Maryland.

In 1955 she took up a research post at Chicago's Dr. Julian Levinson Foundation, a clinic for children with developmental disabilities, where she remained until 1961.

[7] Rowley also aided in the discovery, through her research, of the formation of retinoid acid, a drug that is able to help return normal function to certain protein receptors.

[7] Although there was some resistance to her ideas at first, her work has proven immensely influential, and by 1990 over seventy translocations had been identified across different cancers.

In 1984, Dr. Rowley was made the Blum-Riese Distinguished Service Professor of medicine, cell biology, molecular and human genetics at the University of Chicago.

In 1989, she was not only presented with the Charles S. Mott Prize by General Motors Cancer Research Foundation, but the Clowes Memorial Award as well.

[13] In 2009, Dr. Rowley was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom,[14] the United States' highest civilian honor, by then-President Barack Obama,[6] and the Gruber Prize in Genetics.