Briefings

RFS Briefings - October 26, 2020

I am pleased to include another issue of RFS Briefings with some timely and encouraging updates on women in science. 

Mark your calendar for Wednesday, October 28th. We will be hosting our third Women in Science Webinar with Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News. In this webinar, renowned neuroscientist Dr. Susan Hockfield, who served as president of MIT from 2004–2012, will share her views of the future that she lays out in her recent book, The Age of Living Machines: How Biology Will Build the Next Technology Revolution. Dr. Hockfield will assess several breathtaking new technologies, such as virus-built batteries, protein-based water filters, cancer-diagnosing nanoparticles, mind-reading bionic limbs, and computer-engineered crops. The development of these technologies, as Dr. Hockfield notes, is the scientific story of the 21st century—one that holds the promise of overcoming some of the greatest humanitarian, medical, and environmental challenges of our time. Register today!


CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna, PhD (University of California, Berkeley/HHMI) was recently awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Emmanuelle Charpentier, PhD, a microbiologist at the Max Planck Institute in Berlin. The GEN/RFS “Women in Science” series is thrilled to host Jennifer Doudna in a live, candid “fireside chat”. Join Jennifer and some special guests for conversation and celebration of a truly groundbreaking scientist, on November 20, 2020. Register now!

In case you missed our previous webinars, you can watch them now:

  • The Life and Times of Rosalind Franklin: British biologist and author Dr. Matthew Cobb explores Franklin’s contribution to DNA structure and how they have been seen in popular culture.
  • The Empowerment of Having a Lab of One’s Own: Rita Colwell, president of the Rosalind Franklin Society, is a pioneering microbiologist and the first woman to lead the National Science Foundation. She is a Distinguished University Professor at both the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health.


We are excited to announce that Raven Baxter, also known as Raven the Science Maven, is the newest member of the Rosalind Franklin Society's advisory board! She is an internationally acclaimed science communicator and molecular biologist who works to progress the state of science culture by creating spaces that are inclusive, educational, and real. She is recognized as a global influencer in Fortune Magazine’s 40 Under 40 list for 2020.

Raven Baxter, also known as Raven the Science Maven.

We are also pleased to announce that Dr. Mona Singh, Professor of  Computer Science at the Lewis Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University will be assuming the role of Editor-in-Chief of Journal of  Computational Biology on January 1, 2021 taking over the mantle from Drs. Sorin Istrail and Michael Waterman. Dr. Singh will start transitioning into her role on Nov 1, 2020.

Mona Singh. Image: Butler College, Princeton University

Dr. Singh started her journey in Computational Biology with her B.A and M.S at Harvard University followed by her PhD from MIT all majoring in Computer Science. She currently works broadly in Computational Molecular Biology focusing on the development of algorithms to decode genomes at the level of proteins.  
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RFS Briefings - October 14, 2020

Dear Colleagues, 

I am pleased to include another issue of RFS Briefings with some timely and encouraging updates on women in science. 

Mark your calendar for Friday, October 16th. We will be hosting our first Women in Science Webinar with Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News. British biologist and author Dr. Matthew Cobb will explore Rosalind Franklin’s contributions to DNA structure and how they have been seen in popular culture. He will equally focus on the other periods in her life, highlighting the insights they provide us into the mind of one of the 20th century’s greatest scientists, one who would have celebrated her hundredth birthday this year. Register today!

 

This is the first of a 3-part series on women in science. Stay tuned for the upcoming events:

  • October 21, 11:00(ET) Dr. Rita Colwell
  • October 28, 11:00(ET) Dr. Susan Hockfield

Many congratulations to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna for winning the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry!

Image: The Nobel Prize on Twitter.

The award went jointly to Emmanuelle Charpentier of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens and Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley, “for the development of a method for genome editing.” They first showed that CRISPR could edit DNA in an in vitro system in a paper published in the 28 June 2012 issue of Science. This is exciting news not only because of the applications of CRISPR in medicine, agriculture, and biotechnology in general but because this is the only science Nobel ever won by two women! 

In a press conference, Doudna said: "It’s great for especially younger women to see this and to see that women’s work can be recognized as much as men’s. I think for many women, there’s a feeling that no matter what they do, their work will never be recognized as it might be if they were a man. And I’d like to see that change, of course, and I think this is a step in the right direction."

Here are some interesting articles covering the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry:

Jennifer Doudna was a featured speaker at our RFS Board Meeting. Check out her presentation: https://youtu.be/UG0xMxEL1Ps 

We also congratulate UCLA professor Andrea Ghez for winning the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for her pioneering research on the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole!

Andrea Ghez, UCLA’s Lauren B. Leichtman and Arthur E. Levine Professor of Astrophysics, has been awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics.
Photo: Elena Zhukova/University of California 

Congratulations to Joanne Chory, the Howard H. and Maryam R. Newman Chair in Plant Biology and director of the Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory at The Salk Institute, for receiving the 2020 Pearl Meister Greengard Prize, Rockefeller’s preeminent award recognizing outstanding women scientists. She pioneered the application of molecular genetics to plant biology and transformed our understanding of photosynthesis. In 2019, her research lab received a $35 million award from the TED Audacious Project for their groundbreaking efforts to combat climate change.

Joanne Chory. Credit: Salk Institute.

  
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RFS Briefings - September 30, 2020

Dear Colleagues, 

I am pleased to include another issue of RFS Briefings with some timely and encouraging updates on women in science. Of particular note, we congratulate Dr. Emily Leproust, CEO and Co-Founder of Twist Bioscience, who received BIO’s 2020 Rosalind Franklin Award sponsored by the Rosalind Franklin Society on September 22, 2020. 

“Emily Leproust is a driven, authentic and thoughtful leader, disrupting the synthetic biology marketplace; she actively works with industry and government leaders to drive innovation and further the bioeconomy,” commented Stephanie Batchelor, vice president of BIO’s industrial and environmental section, in a recent press release.

Emily Leproust (Photo: Business Wire) 

We also congratulate Dr. Aviv Regev, who was awarded the 2020 Lurie Prize in Biomedical Sciences for her incredible achievements in biomedical research.

Aviv Regev. Photo: Casey Atkins, MIT Biology

Mark your calendar for Friday, October 16th. We will be hosting our first Women in Science Webinar with Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News. British biologist and author Dr. Matthew Cobb will explore Rosalind Franklin’s contributions to DNA structure and how they have been seen in popular culture. He will equally focus on the other periods in her life, highlighting the insights they provide us into the mind of one of the 20th century’s greatest scientists, one who would have celebrated her hundredth birthday this year. Register today.

 

  
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RFS Briefings - September 15, 2020

Dear Colleagues, 

I am pleased to include another issue of RFS Briefings with some timely and encouraging updates on women in science. Of particular note, we congratulate two of this year’s exceptional Vilcek Prize winners: 

 Ruth Lehman, Whitehead Institute and MIT
 Silvi Rouskin,  Whitehead Institute and MIT

We continue to applaud the work of the Vilcek Foundation, a longtime supporter of RFS, and their influential work to support and showcase the contributions of scholars who are immigrants to the United States.  
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(the new!) RFS Briefings - September 1, 2020

Dear Colleagues, 

I am pleased to include another issue of RFS Briefings with some timely and encouraging updates on women in science.  
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