As a pediatrician and mother, Wynne Sharples (Ballinger) (1923-2008) became known for her advocacy work on cystic fibrosis. In 1945, she was working in the biological laboratories at Radcliffe College and then trained at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. She founded the Cystic Fibrosis Research Institute of Pennsylvania in 1960, after two of her children were diagnosed with the disease. Later in her life, she lived in Palm Beach, Florida, where she founded the Horticulture Society of South Florida and was an award-winning breeder of Pekingese dogs, which she had been showing since the 1970s