Dr. Elizabeth D. Hay was the first woman to be elected president of the Society for Developmental Biology, to be made full professor in a Harvard Medical School preclinical department and to be elected president of the American Society of Cell Biology.
American biologist and environmental activist
Hazel Weekes was a zoologist noted for her pioneering work on the placentation of viviparous reptiles and its possible relationship to that of mammals.
Nobel Prize winner Karikó’s research and perseverance proved that mRNA vaccines were possible and paved the way for the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines to end the Covid-19 Pandemic.
Dr. King’s important discovery of the BRCA1 gene in 1990 transformed the medical world for breast cancer.
Paula “Polly” Liebau emigrated to the U.S. from Germany as a young woman, following the allure of gold to Alaska. Along with her prospecting partner and husband, John Anderson, Paula crossed the Alaska Range by dog team, arriving to mine in the Kantishna District in 1918.
Biologist, immunologist, and biotechnology executive with decades of experience leading teams in drug research and development. Molecules and therapeutics developed under her leadership have become critical treatments for HIV, cystic fibrosis, inflammation, multiple sclerosis, and Hepatitis C.
Sue Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH, is a physician-scientist who led the development of the first gene-targeted drug for treating breast cancer.
Canadian physician, pathologist, museum curator, professor, cardiologist, author, and editor
In 1960, during her first month at the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey took a bold stance against inadequate testing and corporate pressure when she refused to approve release of thalidomide in the United States. The drug had been used as a sleeping pill and was later proven to have caused thousands of birth deformities in Germany and Great Britain.