Issue 15: Women of Science Oct '24
News, profiles, research, reviews, recommendations on all things women in science
Welcome back to another October edition of WOSc - the weekly newsletter covering all things women in science 📈🧠📚𝞹
🔬 What to expect?
All subscribers receive the free edition covering highlights in media, awards and discovery as well as things to read, see and watch re: women in science. Drops every Tuesday. Tell your friends:
Thank you for joining. Enjoy the read.
A quick run-down of this issue:
Abstract & Intro: News and updates on all things women of and in science
Materials, Methods, Discussion: WOSc Profile:
Conclusions & Further Reading: Our media & content recommendations for your week
Abstract & Intro
Your rundown of headlines, news, notes & media snippets re: women of science
📌 Aerospace: The first woman on the moon will wear a Prada spacesuit
The first woman on the moon will be wearing a Prada-designed space suit, as part of NASA's first human mission to the lunar South Pole.
📌 Fundamental science: Nobel prizes are still failing to celebrate the diversity of science
Following our op-ed in last week’s WOSc issue highlighting the dearth of women Nobel Prize winners in STEM categories, this article from New Scientist takes a closer look at how marginalised communities are being overlooked by the prize committees
📌 Tech: The ‘huge disadvantage’ women behind femtech phenomenon face
Despite growing demand for female health solutions, businesses are coming up against entrenched prejudice
📌 Tech: Google, Meta, and TikTok take down pages of Russian factory recruiting foreign women for drone production
Google, Meta, and TikTok removed accounts of a Tatarstan plant recruiting foreign women to produce drones for Russia's war in Ukraine
📌 Physics: Gender gap in physics entrenched by biased collaboration networks, study finds
Biased collaboration and citation patterns are responsible for driving the gender gap in physics. That is according to a new study, which finds that poor female representation persists due to established male physicists preferring to work with early-career male researchers
📌 AI: Women battle efforts to sideline them from health care and the AI revolution
The topic was front-and-centre at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit, featuring heavy hitters who are hacking to bits the hurdles facing women at work and home
& in other brief news:
Materials, Methods, Discussion
This week - a profile of Flossie Wong-Staal: The visionary whose work untangled the mysteries of HIV
Born Yee Ching Wong in China in 1946, Flossie Wong-Staal grew up in a time of great upheaval. Her family fled to Hong Kong during the Chinese Civil War, where she developed a fascination with science. Little did she know, she would become one of the most influential virologists of her generation, leaving an indelible mark on the study and progression to treatment of HIV and AIDS.
At a time when women – particularly Asian women – were seldom seen in the lab, Wong-Staal’s arrival in the scientific community at UCLA as part of her undergraduate studies was a statement to say the least, after which went on to pursue a PhD in molecular biology at UC San Diego before joining Robert Gallo’s lab at the National Cancer Institute in 1973. It was here where the question of the hour was understanding retroviruses: mysterious agents that carried their genetic code in reverse, and which became a core focus of Wong-Staal’s work.
When the HIV/AIDS epidemic exploded in the early 1980s, scientists were at a loss to explain it: A new, terrifying disease that devastated communities and baffled the medical world. But Wong-Staal was among the first to suspect that HIV was a retrovirus, making history in 1983 when she became the first scientist to clone HIV and establish the cause of the AIDS epidemic. Wong-Staal and her colleagues' identification of the virus was the linchpin that allowed researchers to track its progression, study how it evaded the immune system, and ultimately develop antiretroviral therapies that have saved millions of lives.
In 2002, she retired from academia, but her passion for discovery never waned. Wong-Staal co-founded iTherX, a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing treatments for hepatitis C, applying the same level of rigour and ambition that defined her HIV research.
Yet while Wong-Staal’s contributions earned her a place in the National Academy of Sciences – one of the highest honours in the scientific world, her name is not as well-known as it should be, and she never quite reached the same levels of public recognition as her male counterparts. After her groundbreaking work in Gallo’s lab, Wong-Staal continued her research at UC San Diego, where she turned her attention to gene therapy and cancer research. Her belief in the potential of using genes to treat diseases was visionary, arriving long before the technology caught up to the idea.
Wong-Staal passed away in 2020, but her contributions live on, not just in the laboratories where her work is still referenced, but in the lives of the millions saved by HIV treatments made possible by her research. Her legacy is one of perseverance, intellectual fearlessness, and an enduring commitment to science, even when the odds were stacked against her.
Conclusions & Further Reading
More links & signposts for you to enjoy this week…
The Written Word:
🧪 The Untold Story of Marie Curie’s Network of Female Scientists
🌙 Moon Cycles and Menstrual Cycles: A long-term study finds that moon cycles and menstrual cycles align at certain times of women’s lives, shedding new light on the full moon and menstrual cycle relationship.
🧬 23andMe Is Sinking Fast. Can the Company Survive? The home DNA testing boom is over, and 23andMe is running out of options…
👩🏻🔬 Science Illustration: A Creative Door for Early Women in Science: This article from The Smithsonian shares stories of four women in their Natural History Department of Invertebrate Zoology who broke through the gendered barriers of science and made significant contributions to scientific discovery through art.
🚺 UK FemTech Controversy: Why Are Men Leading Women's Health? and Why Women in Tech Are Sounding an Alarm both address growing concerns about the lack of funding for female founders
‘She was right and they were wrong’: the female astronomers hidden by science’s male elite: As a new play examines the work of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, The Guardian UK celebrate the women whose crucial discoveries were ignored or suppressed.
The Small Country Where Women in Tech Are Flourishing: In Moldova, where word spreads quickly, it seems everyone has gotten the memo: Here, women are welcome in tech
(Yes, we are firm Moo Deng stans here…)
Pods & vids:
🎙️ Healthtech Pigeon Podcast: Is it AI or is it just a really good algorithm?
Women-led healthtech startups, especially those focusing on women's issues, have a tough time landing funding - and SomX’s Belle Taylor highlights the importance of having more women at the decision-making table of venture companies so we can begin to reverse these statistics.
Likewise, if you’re in VC or know someone who is, complete the survey to be a part of a tangible change for everyone ➡️ https://lnkd.in/eWh3cXSW
Opportunities:
Revolut Women in Engineering Grant
The Rev-women in Engineering Grant, part of the Rev-celerator Internship Programme, is spearheading a change to this gender imbalance, incentivising more women in STEM to apply by offering financial support to top students at universities in Spain, Poland, Portugal, and the UK, with 5 grants of up to £5,000 available.
That’s all for this issue!
Thank you for reading: The WoS mission is to support, share and promote the innovative and groundbreaking work that has been and continues to be done by women across all scientific disciplines, and to empower and inspire the next generation of female leaders in the field.
If you liked it, here’s another reminder to share us with your friends, network, neighbours, coffee baristas ☕ etc.:
Resubscribed! Glad you are back, Grace! And thanks for featuring The Guardian piece on disadvantages FemTech founders face (that includes research from the campaign I co-founded, CensHERship!). Anna