RFS Briefings - December 2016

Our December 2016 issue of RFS Briefing has some timely and encouraging updates on women in science, particularly:

$25 Million in Breakthrough Prizes Given in Science and Math, nytimes.com, December 4, 2016
Huda Zoghbi, MD, professor of neurology at Baylor College of Medicine, Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, director of the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children's Hospital, and Rosalind Franklin Society Board Member, was recognized by the Breakthrough Foundation for her work with a prize of $3 million. She discovered that a mutation to a gene known as SCA1 causes Spinocerebellar ataxia, a neurodegenerative disorder.

Mina Bissell, PhD Receives ASCB's highest scientific honor, the 2016 E.B. Wilson Medal, http://www.ascb.org, November 15, 2015
Dr. Bissell, RFS Board Member, is the 2016 winner of the E.B. Wilson award for science, presented on December 6 at annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology. In a "very personal essay," published in Molecular Biology of the Cell (Volume 27, November 1, 2016), she describes the honor of winning the award as "truly humbling," and shares the joys and challenges she has experienced as a woman scientist. This paper is dedicated "'To the memory of Susan Lindquist, the most prophetic, distinguished, passionate and original scientist of our era.'" Dr. Lindquist, who died on October 27, 2016, was an RFS Board Member.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute Hanna H. Gray Fellows Program, hhmi.org, November 8, 2016
Through the new Hanna H. Gray Fellows Program, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) seeks to increase diversity in the biomedical research community. HHMI will recruit and retain individuals from groups underrepresented in the life sciences. The application deadline is February 15, 2016 at 3:00 p.m. (Eastern Time).

Click here to access this issue of RFS Briefings