(1925-1983) is considered by many to be the founder of bioinformatics, a field that designs and applies computational methods to biology. Today, if someone is interested in a particular protein, they can look it up in online databases, similarly to looking up a word in an encyclopedia. Many of us take these databases for...
Audrey Shields Penn was the first African-American woman to serve as acting director of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) institute. Heading a governmental biomedical science agency is no easy task – you’re responsible for overseeing groundbreaking research, the training of doctors and scientists, and working with patients, the public, and policymakers. And if...
Zeloite: it’s not just a great Scrabble word; it’s also a type of microporous mineral with many uses, as shown by this week’s WiSE Wednesday honoree, Edith Flanigen. Flanigen was born in 1929 in Buffalo, New York. In high school, she and her two sisters were so inspired by their chemistry teacher that all...
Veronica Rodrigues (1953-2010) was an influential neuroscientist who helped cultivate and gain recognition of a thriving biosciences community in India. Despite being remembered as one of India’s greatest modern scientists, Rodrigues was born and raised in Kenya, entering India later as an adult and falling in love with the country. Rodrigues’ education spanned multiple...
Last week, we were saddened to hear of the passing of biologist and HIV/AIDS crusader Mathilde Krim who, among other accomplishments, founded the nonprofit that became the Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR). Krim was born in Italy in 1926 and raised in Switzerland, where she received degrees in genetics from the University of Geneva....
