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COVID-19 has no silver linings, but it has helped shine the spotlight on women who work in academic medicine—the space in which physicians and scientists work together to create medical breakthroughs. These doctors and scientists do their research behind the scenes, out of the limelight, but those breakthroughs matter—they helped make the speedy development of a COVID-19 vaccine possible, for example.
A few women in science are well-known. For example, Dr. Jennifer Doudna and her collaborator, Dr. Emanuelle Charpentier, won the 2020 Nobel Prize for their development of the CRISPR tool to edit DNA.
In contrast, other women are still almost invisible. Take Dr. Katalin Kariko, for instance. Her research on mRNA therapy was used to develop the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which helped save untold numbers of lives. Yet for most of her career, no one in academic medicine took Kariko seriously as a scientist. She had almost no support from anyone in academia to help her work. The university didn’t give her a tenure-track job or startup funds for a lab of her own; nor was she able to get grants to fund her research—yet, against all odds, she persisted.
the healthcare system would collapse without the millions of hardworking women in the industry. they deserve so much praise and recognition
Indeed. Women should be recognized for their achievement in the field of medicine just the same as men. Their contribution to battling COVID should serve as a starting point.