Where are all the women scientists in pigment cell and melanoma research?

Abstract

This is a transformative time indeed. The question “Where are all the women?” that is frequently asked in every field of human endeavor now seems to be getting a decisive answer—”Here we are.” It is true now for Pigment Cell & Melanoma Research. Check out the journal masthead! The three Associate Editors of this journal, Professors Ashani Weeraratna, Elizabeth Patton, and Caroline Le Poole, are individuals who distinguished themselves as outstanding scientists, internationally recognized scholars and highly deserving to lead the journal to the next frontier together with the eminent women members of the Editorial Board. To those who would look (I mean “google”) and are willing to acknowledge and recognize the contributions, the answer to the question about the place of women in science is right in front of their eyes. I am referring to the Google Doodle1 , (almost) a daily feature to celebrate events and people. Here are some that caught my attention. The Doodle on November 22, 2016, featured Cecilia Grierson, born in Buenos Aires in 1859, the first woman to receive a medical degree in Argentina. As a physician, Grierson founded the first nursing school in Argentina and was the first person to suggest that medical service vehicles should have alarm bells—resulting in what we now know as the ambulance. Asima Chatterjee was featured on her 100th birthday. She was the first woman to receive a Doctorate of Science in India. She studied the medicinal properties of plants native to India and her most noted contribution to the field was her work on vinca alkaloids that are widely used today in cancer chemotherapy. Carrie Derick, honored on her 155th anniversary of her birth, was a Canadian botanist and geneticist and Canada's first female professor at her alma mater, McGill University. After finishing her undergraduate and MA studies, she went to the University of Bonn, Germany, where she completed enough research to earn a Ph.D in 1901. Unfortunately, she did not receive an official doctorate because the school did not award Ph.Ds to women at the time! So, I ask this question—if PCMR were to have a similar Doodle, who are the women scientists in pigment cell and melanoma research, we would feature and celebrate. I am sure, there are many. Here are two that I admire most. Beatrice Mintz1, a pioneer of genetic engineering techniques, was among the first scientists to generate both chimeric and transgenic mammals. Although she graduated magna cum laude from Hunter College, New York, in 1941, because of anti-Semitic admissions quotas in the colleges on the east coast, she had to travel west to attend the University of Iowa where she received her Ph.D in 1946. For those who use mouse models of melanoma, it is worth noting that Dr. Mintz produced the first mouse model of human malignant melanoma in 1993. Dr. Mintz is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences. Nicole Marthe Le Douarin1, who wrote the book (literally) on neural crest (The Neural Crest, 1982), is a developmental biologist, well known for using chimeras to study the development of the vertebrate nervous and immune systems. She was appointed to the faculty at the University of Nantes in 1966. The dean, however, almost did not allow her appointment because he disapproved of married women on the same faculty with their husbands. She was not given laboratory space or a research budget, as her husband. “Nevertheless, she persisted” and was elected to the French Academy of Sciences At the beginning of 2018, as I took the charge as the Editor of this journal, everywhere around the world, women were on the march (often literally). A quick retrospective look at the editorial leadership of PCMR revealed that for too long we at the PCMR also have allowed some to ask the question “Where are all the women scientists in pigment cell and melanoma research?” I believe the appointment of Profs. Le Poole, Patton, and Weeraratna as Associate Editors is my way of saying-”Here they are!”