Women in the Lab

Name a woman chemist. Marie Curie will always be the first name we think of. 

Born in Warsaw, Poland in 1866 she studied physics and mathematics at the Sorbonne in Paris.

In 1903, Madame Curie became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physics, awarded jointly to her and her husband, Pierre, for their pioneering research on radioactivity. Following his death in a street accident, she would continue her research and win a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911 for her discovery of the elements radium and polonium. Not only was she the first person to win two Nobel Prizes, she remains to this day the only person awarded a Nobel Prize in two different sciences.

Her research revolutionized medicine, from the X-Ray to the foundation of cancer treatment, yet Madame Curie never patented her discoveries; she wanted them to benefit humanity. Her daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie became a chemist and physicist, who received the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with her husband, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, for their discovery of induced radioactivity.  They were the second married couple, after her parents to be honored.  

We leave France and look at England to find the next laureate, Dr. Dorothy Hodgkin received the 1964 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the only British woman scientist to be recognized. She was a pioneer in X-ray crystallography which allowed her to see the structure of molecules that until then existed only in theory.

At the age of 24 she began her research in insulin, pausing her work to concentrate on the ‘miracle drug’ penicillin, a more urgent need during World War II.  It took her four years to complete her map of its 17 atoms. She turned to Vitamin B12, an essential weapon against pernicious anemia, and in eight years mapped its 181 atoms. She did conquer insulin; with 788 atoms, it took her 34 years but it fast-forwarded treatments for diabetes.

Dr. Frances Arnold received the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for pioneering the field of "directed evolution" developing enzymes. Her work revolutionized environmentally-friendly industrial processes to develop enzymes that can replace toxic compounds in anything from medicines to biofuels to laundry detergents.

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, she studied mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University and then earned a doctorate in chemical engineering in 1985 at the University of California, Berkeley.

Concerned about the damage we were doing to the planet, her method mimics the process of natural selection, research that began when she first arrived at Caltech just after completing her PhD. Speaking to the LA Times in 2011 she noted, "I said 'OK, if one experiment doesn't work I'm going to do a million experiments, and I don't care if 999,999 don't work. I'm going to find the one that does.'" 

Since Dr Arnold opened the door two more American women chemists have been recognized.

Berkeley biochemist Dr. Jennifer Doudna, with Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020 for discovering one of gene technology’s sharpest tools: the genome editing CRISPR/Cas9.  

‘Genetic scissors’ are used to rewrite DNA – the code of life - in animals, plants and human cells with extremely high precision, revolutionizing molecular life sciences, from plant breeding to innovative cancer therapies and making the dream of curing inherited diseases closer to coming true.

Drs Doudna and Charpentier are the first women to win a Nobel Prize in the sciences together, which Doudna said tells the world that “women rock.”

In 2022 Carolyn R. Bertozzi, along with Morten P. Meldal and Karl Barry Sharpless, was awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry. A Washington DC native Dr Bertozzi was a graduate of Harvard and the University of California at Berkley; she received the MacArthur "genius" award at age 33 and today is the Baker Family Director of Sarafan ChEM-H at Stanford and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, among her many positions.

In research chemists look to build increasingly complicated molecules, a time consuming and expensive process. Click chemistry is organic LEGO®, molecular building blocks that snap together quickly and efficiently. Using click chemistry in living organisms Dr. Bertozzi developed bioorthogonal reactions that take place inside living organisms without disrupting the cell’s normal chemistry. In the lab these reactions are used to explore cells and track biological processes, improving the targeting of cancer pharmaceuticals.

There’s a gender gap in the fields of STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, with women making up just28% of the STEM workforce.  In begins in school.  While girls and young women do well in math and science, stereotypes and presentation keep them from pursuing careers in STEM fields. 

Stereotypes about girls’ interest in science and engineering are formed as early as age 6.  Looking for role models, in popular media men are seven times more likely to be shown in roles of science.

86% of girls and young women polled expressed a desire to work in a field where they can help others, yet STEM education is often disconnected from real life applications. 

Want to encourage girls and young women to explore science and engineering?  From youth organizations such as Girl Scouts to Girls Who Code there are organizations looking to bolster our workforce and encourage the next  generation of researchers with programming and opportunities for all.  See what’s available for your daughter and encourage her school to participate!