Jewel Plummer Cobb was the granddaughter of a freed slave who graduated from pharmacy school.
In high school, she enjoyed taking courses dealing with biology and working in the biology labs at her school.
She received a master's degree and a doctorate in 
Cell from
New York University. She then entered the National Cancer Institute on a postdoctoral fellowship. Her research works with
designing experiments to compare the in vivo (in the cancer patient) effects of chemotherapeutic agents with in vitro
(in a flask, test tube, or a dish) effects from the same patient.
Her publications are many, including fifty books, articles, and other scholarly reports. She has been awarded eighteen honorary doctorates.
