February 11 marks the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, proclaimed by the UN in the year 2015.
International Day of Women and Girls in Science: A day to break the gender gap
The main objective of this day is to achieve greater participation and inclusion of women and girls in the world of science and technology and thus break the gender gap.
Currently, in some countries of the world, there is a gender struggle, where women are still denied participation in disciplines such as technology, science or mathematics, just to name a few.
Therefore, in the framework of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, below we show you 3 pioneers of Medicine.
Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910)
She was the first woman who managed to practice the profession as a doctor in the whole world. Her application was rejected at ten medical schools. She until she finally got accepted to the University of Geneva.
In 1849 she became the first woman in history to become a doctor. However, she received the advice to take courses in homeopathy and dedicate herself to the practice of informal medicine. While she was performing a cure, a purulent secretion splattered her left eye and left her blind, which would cut short her career as a surgeon.
Shortly after, he moves to England where he meets Florence Nightingale. Upon returning to the United States, she founded a Nursing school for women with her sister Emily. She also wrote treatises to spread advice and recommendations to improve her hygiene and health among the female population. In 1868 she founded a Medical University for women.
Marie Curie (1867-1934)
She was a French nationalized Polish scientist, a pioneer in the field of radioactivity. She was the first person to receive two Nobel Prizes in different specialties (Physics and Chemistry) and the first woman to hold the position of professor at the University of Paris.
Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903 with her husband Pierre Curie and the physicist Henri Becquerel. Years later, she alone won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. It was her recognition for discovering, together with her husband Pierre, two new chemical elements in the periodic table: polonium and radium. A finding that opened the doors to the development of X-rays. She named the first chemical element she discovered, polonium, after her country of origin.
In addition to discoveries, her achievements include the first studies on the phenomenon of radioactivity (a term she herself coined). As well as techniques for the isolation of radioactive isotopes. She founded the Curie Institute in Paris and in Warsaw, which remain among the leading centers of medical research today.
During World War I, he created the first radiological centers for military use. He died in 1934 at the age of 66, at the Sancellemoz sanatorium in Passy, from aplastic anemia caused by exposure to radiation from radium test tubes. Which he kept in his pockets at work and in the construction of the mobile X-ray units of the First World War.
Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958)
She was an English chemist and crystallographer, responsible for important contributions to the understanding of the structure of DNA. The X-ray diffraction images that revealed the double helix shape of this molecule are hers) of RNA. As well as viruses, carbon and graphite. Her works on coal and viruses were appreciated during her lifetime. While her personal contribution to DNA-related studies, which had a profound impact on scientific advances in genetics, was not recognized in the same way as the work of James Dewey Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins .
Franklin took the X-ray diffraction DNA images while at King’s College, London. These images, which suggested a helical structure and allowed inferences to be drawn about key details about DNA, were shown by Wilkins to Watson. According to Francis Crick, her research and data were key to the determination of Watson and Crick’s model of the DNA double helix in 1953. Maurice confirmed this view through a statement of his own at the dedication of the Franklin-Wilkins Building in the 2000.
Watson, Crick, and Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 1962. Watson pointed out that Franklin should also have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, along with Wilkins.
After completing his work on DNA, with his own team at Birkbeck College, Franklin led research on the molecular structures of viruses. Which led to discoveries never seen before.
The viruses he studied include the polio virus and the tobacco mosaic virus. Continuing his research, his teammate and later beneficiary Aaron Klug won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1982.
Related Notes:
‘No fetus can survive that’: how COVID attacks the placenta
6 keys to smart public relations
Skater tests positive for this banned drug at the 2022 Winter Olympics