Celebrating Women in Science - International Women’s Day.
History holds the witness that women are no far behind than men in every field especially in the field of Science. Historians having interest in gender studies have illuminated that despite having lack of opportunities and the barriers they faced, women have pioneered in science and it can easily be said that without them the world would not be as it is today. With the start of 19th century the women society saw some ease in their struggle and thus starting emerging on the same ground as men. The women of today in the field of science, like their ancestors are playing a vital role in their fields and are giants in almost every aspect ranging from astronomy to molecular biology. This Women’s Day, here’s celebrating these pioneers that changed and are changing the world! biology. This Women’s Day, here’s celebrating these pioneers that changed and are changing the world!
· Rosalind Elsie Franklin (1920–1958)
The woman who can be credited for the discovery of the helical structure of DNA and without her effort the two scientists Watson and Crick might have never been able to describe the structure of DNA as they did.
Rosalind was the first person who was able to get two high resolution pictures of DNA by using the technique of hydrating the fibers of the genetic material through crystallography at the King’s College under the apprenticeship of Wilkins. At that time the mystery of the structure of the genetic molecule was an important topic and people around the globe where using techniques to obtain its structure. It was these pictures that helped James Watson and Francis Crick confirm their theorized structure of DNA molecule.
Rosalind spent the rest of life working and publishing about tobacco mosaic virus before she died in 1958 due to cancer. If it wasn’t because of her, Watson and Crick might not been able to describe the structure of DNA as they did. The noble prize was awarded to Watson, Crick and Wilkins in 1962 after the death of Rosalind, the person who actually deserved the Noble Prize.
· Barbara McClintock (1902–1992)
Barbara McClintock, the woman who discovered the concept of mobile gene elements at the time when scientists believed in Mendel’s perspective of Inheritance. Born in New York, McClintock dedicated her entire life to the study of Hereditary and Genetics of maize plants. She was the first person to map the entire genome of corn and is also credited for discovering a new technique for viewing chromosomes in the maize plant and later on used this technique to discover crossing over along with her student Harriet B. Creighton.
She was awarded the noble prize for her work on the jumping genes. She discovered that the jumping elements of chromosomes in maize where responsible for insertions, deletions, and relocations of genes. Her theory was later confirmed in 1971 after advancement in the field of inheritance.
She died at the age of 81 in 1992.
· Marie Curie (1867–1934)
A well-known name in the field of radioactivity, Curie is credited for the discovery of polonium and radium, the two of the very first radioactive elements discovered. Her early researches, together with her husband, were often performed under difficult conditions, laboratory arrangements were poor and both had to undertake much teaching to earn a livelihood but this did not stop Curie from working.
Working together with her husband she discovered a unique way of extracting elements from the radioactive isotopes. Although facing many hurdles in her work, Marie never lost her enthusiasm for science throughout her life and did much to establish a radioactivity laboratory in hometown with the help of her daughter Irene Curie.
She received her first noble prize in 1903 which she shared with her husband and later she won her second noble prize in chemistry in the year 1911 for her contributions to the field of radioactivity.
She died in July 1934 due to illness.
· Jennifer Doudna (1964 — present)
An American biochemist and the leading investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), Jennifer is well known as a leading figure in what is referred to as the CRISPR revolution. She is well-known for her fundamental work and leadership in developing CRISPR-mediated genome editing. She also directs the Innovative Genomics Institute, a joint UC Berkeley-UC San Francisco center.
In the 2012 paper “A programmable dual-RNA-guided DNA endonuclease in adaptive bacterial immunity”, Doudna along with her project partners were the first to propose that CRISPR could be used for programmable gene editing which is considered as one of the most significant discoveries in the history of biology. Their work has since been further developed by many research groups for applications ranging from fundamental protein research to treatments for diseases including sickle cell anemia, cystic fibrosis, Huntington’s disease, and HIV.
Jennifer brought a huge resolution in the field of genetics and is a leading example for many young female scientists around the world.
· Katherine Freese (1957 — present)
Katherine is a theoretical astrophysicist and is the director of Nordita, the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics. She is one of the best known contributors to the field of Dark Matter and Dark energy and was one of the first to propose ways to discover dark matter.
In the recent years she proposed a model known as “Cardassian expansion” in which dark energy is replaced with a modification of Einstein’s equations. Recently she proposed a new theoretical type of star called dark star, powered by dark matter annihilation rather than fusion.
Freese has also worked on the beginnings of the universe, including the search for a successful inflationary theory to kick off the Big Bang. In addition to contributions in academia and research, Dr.Freese has also written a comprehensive review for the general educated public on dark matter and energy as they relate to recent research in cosmology and particle physics, titled The Cosmic Cocktail: Three Parts Dark Matter.
· Janet Iwasa (1978 — present)
We know a lot about molecular processes, yet they are impossible to observe directly. Molecular animator Janet Iwasa’s colorful, action-packed 3D animations illustrate how molecules look, move and interact, allowing scientists to visualize their hypotheses and conveying complex scientific information to general audiences. Not only that, she also created Molecular Flipbook, a free open source of 3D animation software tool that lets researchers intuitively and quickly model molecular hypotheses.
In 2010, Iwasa published her famous article, “Animating the model figure”. In this article, she points out the importance of animations in revealing and teaching scientific concepts. She also pushed the invention of animation software engineered exclusively for the scientific research community and in 2015 she released her textbook, Karp’s Cell and Molecular Biology: Concepts and Experiments, with co-authors Gerald Karp and Wallace Marshal.
In 2014 she was recognized as a TED Fellow, a FASEB BioArt Winner and one of Foreign Policy Magazine’s “100 Leading Global Thinkers”.
· Pardis Sabeti (1975 — present)
The Iranian-American medical geneticist and evolutionary geneticist, Sabetri is one of the world’s leading female scientist of this era and a full professor in the Center for Systems Biology and Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University.
In the year 2012 Sabeti developed a bioinformatic statistical method which identifies sections of the genome that have been subject to natural selection and an algorithm which explains the effects of genetics on the evolution of disease. Later in the year 2014, she headed a group which used advanced genomic sequencing technology to identify a single point of infection from an animal reservoir to a human in the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
Due to her work on Ebola virus she was named one of TIME Magazine’s Persons of the Year in 2014, and was listed as one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2015
Sabeti is also an annual participant in the Distinguished Lecture Series at the acclaimed Research Science Institute at MIT for high school students. In May 2015, she delivered a TED Talk, called “How we’ll fight the next deadly virus”.
· Nina Tandon (1980 — present)
A young American biomedical engineer, Nina is a well-known face of modern science. She is the CEO and co-founder of EpiBone, “The world’s first company growing bones for skeletal reconstruction”
Nina is currently revolutionizing medicine. Her company is the first in the world to use a patient’s stem cells to grow human bone that can then be used to repair bone defects like bone loss. Ideally, these bones can be grown to the exact shape and size needed and are easily implanted into the body because they are made from the patient’s own cells. She is also a senior fellow at the Lab for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering at Columbia.
Tandon due to her contributions to the field of stem biology was a 2011 Ted Fellow and a 2012 senior Ted Fellow too and she’s also one of Business Insider’s “40 under 40 People to watch in 2015”
Nina is also the co-writer of the book, “Super Cells: Building with Biology”. In the year 2015 L’Oréal Paris named her as one of its Women of Worth in the science and innovation category.
· Katrin Amunts (1962 — present)
Katrin Amunts is a German neuroscientist and a professor at the Institute for Brain Research at the University of Düsseldorf and is also Director of the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine.
Since the dawn of the 20th century there have been more breakthroughs in neuroscience than during any other century. Yet there are still many aspects of the human brain that we’re nowhere near completely understanding. So in order to improve the study of out brain Katrin is currently leading a team of researchers who are carefully constructing a 3D map of the brain.
The team announced last year that they’d made the most detailed map of the brain ever, which should lead to unprecedented insights into the construction and organization of the brain and how it drives our behavior. This would allow the neuroscientists to improve their understanding of the human’s control center and to understand combat diseases or disorders such as depression, addiction, dementia, and Parkinson’s disease. This construction is being called the “Big Brain”
· Canan Dagdeviren (1985 — present)
A Turkish physicist and the first Turkish member of the Harvard University Junior Fellow of Harvard, Canan is a emerging young scientist of the 21st century and is currently a postdoc graduate at MIT. Canan is a specialized in Materials Science and Engineering program.
Dagdeviren is currently working on creating electronic chips that can not only be implanted in the body, but be powered by the body too, thus eliminating the need of the batteries. These chips can be the future’s pacemaker, implantable defibrillators and cardiac monitors. She says that her work in the cardiology center of the Arizona State University hospital yielded good results on sheep, calves and pigs i.e animals that have hearts that are comparable in size to humans and that the energy generated from the motion of internal organs was sufficient to run a cardiac pacemaker.
Dagdeviren’s idea won her the “International Maria Pia” prize. She is also currently working on artificial skin and organs at the Harvard Medical School. Her work was published in the prestigious American journal ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS)’
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/17-top-female-scientists-who-have-changed-the-worl/
http://www.businessinsider.com/coolest-women-in-science-2015-7
