Diacumakos completed her postdoctoral training at Rockefeller University between 1958 and 1960.[1] She worked at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Cornell University Medical Center from 1965 to 1971.[1] In 1961 she joined Edward Tatum, developing microneedle techniques that allowed her to transplant the nuclei of one cell to another.[1]
She returned to Rockefeller University as a senior researcher in 1971, working on cellular drug resistance and cell insertion techniques.[1][3][4] She made important contributions to the micromanipulation of mammalian cells.[5][6] She studied the displacement of chromosomes during extraction at different mitotic stages.[7] She demonstrated the precise fusion of mammalian somatic cells using microsurgery in 1972.[8] She was made head of the Cytobiology Laboratory in 1975 after Tatum died unexpectedly.[1] She was unable to raise funding for her own research.[2] Her work with micropipettes became well known, and she worked with Dana Giulian on electrodes which could impale human cells without damage and measure the potential of a cytoplasm.[9][10]
In 1979 she collaborated with William French Anderson to insert a functioning gene into a defective cell within a living mouse, correcting a genetic defect.[1][11][12] Her microsurgical techniques opened new paths to curing medical conditions.[12] They conducted their first ever experiment on a human 11 years later.[2][13] She lectured at the Pasteur Institute in 1981.[1]
Diacumakos died of a heart attack on June 11, 1984.[1]
