1. As President, you participated in the selection of the Jury. How did you choose its members?
The selection process is vital. The big challenge is to bring together scientists from all around the world who are experts in various fields of biology, with comple-mentary areas of knowledge. They must be up-to-date on the latest innovations in their fields of expertise, actively involved in the scientific community on their con-tinent and aware of research conditions, to help us make the best choices when examining the candidates.

2. How are candidates selected from around the world? 
Our role consists of selecting 5 Laureates each year, one from each continent. The selection process is extremely rigorous because our main challenge is to distinguish the best in each field and in each country. This is why it is so important to have a diverse but complementary Jury.

3. Does the Laureate selection process change from one continent to the next? Are the socio-economic aspects of a candidate’s home country taken into ac-count?
In Africa, the level of research is obviously not the same as what can be found in Europe. It receives much less funding, and applied research is generally favoured over fundamental research. Latin America is in a similar situation. The partnership between L’Oréal and UNESCO to Award scientists on all five continents makes a very strong statement that supports the development of research, notably in low-income countries. Jury members take into consideration all these factors when se-lecting Laureates. Coming from a variety of backgrounds, Jury members can better understand a candidate’s working conditions as well as the excellence of their research. 

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Günter Blobel, eminent professor at the Rockefeller University in New York, received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1999. Today his research is taking cellular biology to new levels. For the past three years, this German biologist has been President of the “For Women in Science” Awards Jury.

- The first link is about neuroscientists and the economical problems they have to deal with “It is because I have such high hopes for neuroscience that I’m so upset by two trends in financing of the field”. [Scientific American] Click here.

- The second one will transport you through space to encounter the ten strangest moons of solar system. Did you know that some moons “may even contain cosy habitats for living creatures”? [New Scientist]. See more.

- The third article is about 200 scientists who will gather next week to “attempt to determine how research into the
possibilities of geoengineering the planet to combat climate change should proceed” [Wired Science]. Read More.

- The fourth link focuses on 24^th of March that was the Ana Lovelace Day, “an international day of blogging to celebrate the achievements of women in technology and science.”  [Blog of Isis the Scientist] Find it here.

- In the fifth link, Female Science Professor tells an Incident with acid mixture that happened into a collegue’s lab and the importance to “be as self-sufficient as possible for emergency procedures”. [Female Science Professor]. Click here

“I have always been in favour of promoting women. They must rise and take full responsibility in the upper echelons of the scientific world, which is largely male dominated.” Micheline Pelletier

A photojournalist for over 30 years, Micheline Pelletier has reported on key world events, society issues and extraordinary people. She launched the idea of reporting on the thirty living winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. For the past 9 years, she has immortalised the “For Women in Science” Laureates.

“Each session was a true discovery. I found each of the Laureates and their struggles to be very moving.” Jaci Judelson

Jaci Judelson is a New York film producer active in the world of movies, fashion and advertising. After starting in the Beauty section of Vogue magazine, she picked up a camera and began producing advertisements, short films and documentaries on beauty, fashion and culture. In 2010, she made 5 video portraits of the “For Women in Science” Award winners.

How did you organize your work with the Laureates?

Micheline Pelletier: For the past nine years, I have travelled the five continents to photograph the Laureates. For me, these direct encounters were the key, because I was able to get them to feel confident in front of the camera. Some have no trouble with their image, but others found it a perfectly new task. It is vital to construct a real dialogue so that they feel free to reveal themselves.

Jaci Judelson: I set out to meet the Laureates, visiting cities like New York, Paris, Mexico, Manila and Cairo, but also places like the molecular microbiology department in Cuernavaca, where Alejandra Bravo works, and the Bataan region, where Professor Cruz collaborates with the Aytas, an indigenous tribe, supporting their project to become self-sufficient. I began filming as soon as I set foot in these countries to immediately capture the atmosphere. Sometimes I even start filming on the first night of my arrival.

Were the Laureates at ease in front of the camera? Were they willing to play along?

J. J.: Most had very little experience in front of a camera, so I did all I could to make them feel at home. I stuck to my style of spontaneity, because I wanted them to feel at home and have fun. After the first contact, they wanted to be open and participated very naturally in the film.

M. P.: I am always surprised by how deeply involved these women get in these sessions. The secret is to listen to them. We must show that we are there to put them in a good light, to report on their research, their commitments and successes.

Which sessions struck you the most?

M. P.: All of the sessions were fascinating because you were meeting with women from all horizons who were not only great scientists, but also dedicated activists. If I had to choose one, it would be Rashika El Ridi, a veritable pioneer in her country from a social as well as a cultural and scientific perspective. I was truly impressed to find myself face to face with such knowledge, daring and freedom!

J. J.: For me, too, each session was a real discovery. One of my best memories is an afternoon spent at the house of Professor Cruz with two of her sisters. They cooked, played the piano and showed us old family photos. I was delighted by seeing how this great scientific mind reverted to being a kid again when in a family context

What message are you trying to convey regarding these scientists?

M. P.: What I have tried to show is that a scientist can also be happy as a woman. They are not isolated by scientific research, much to the contrary. I had to capture the passion that moves them!

J. J.: I wanted to convey that the Laureates are courageous women, who have found great meaning in their lives. They are deeply committed to their research, thinking about it night and day, with passion and perseverance. They are all seeped in true wisdom.�
 

Micheline Pelletier’s photos and Jaci Judelson’s films can be viewed on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/forwomeninscience and facebook

INTERVIEW with Alice Dautry, General Director of Institut Pasteur
gives us her view of this year’s Fellowship winners and described the workshops that will be held at the Institut Pasteur especially for them.

[AGORA] As the Director General of Institut Pasteur, could you describe your institution’s operations and major projects?
[Alice Dautry] Institut Pasteur is a public-interest foundation largely financed by the generosity of individuals and corporations. Louis Pasteur deliberately chose this status, which guarantees our independence. He also defined our three basic missions: biomedical research, public health and teaching. Institut Pasteur is involved in all the major areas of biomedical research, and many scientific disciplines first emerged on our campus. Ten Institut Pasteur researchers have won Nobel Prizes, including Fran-çoise Barré-Sinoussi, the first French woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Medicine.
We are mainly known worldwide for our research on infectious diseases, but our teams also work in the neurosciences and developmental biology, to name but a few. Education has always played an essential role at the Institut Pasteur. As a teacher, I attach great importance to educating future generations. Research is not only a source of wealth, but also a formidable career opportunity and passion. We must nurture and develop young talent!

[A] Institut Pasteur has organized workshops for the Fellowship winners. What is on the Programme this year? What will they learn?
[AD] Alongside L’Oréal, we have designed a very rich training Programme that will take place at the Institut Pasteur’s teaching centre. Our goal is to give these young researchers some keys that are not taught in science classes. For example, how to make a research presentation? How to get published? How to find funding? We also show how to build a scientific network and to protect discoveries. We are talking about very practical training that will be useful for their career development. This is exactly the kind of training I wish I had received when I started out on my career.

[A] Of the research of the 2010 Fellowship winners, which projects caught your attention in particular? Do you think they will have a key impact on scientific research in the future?
[AD] Reading their research summaries, I was extremely impressed by the remarkable quality of the Fellowship winners’ research and the diversity of research topics. They encompass scientific fields belonging to both academic and applied research, and I hope they will have rich development prospects in public health. This great diversity gives me enormous hope in the scientific advances to come in the years ahead. 

Alice Dautry is a member of the Honorary Committee of the “For Women in Science” Awards. Director General of the Institut Pasteur, she is also a cellular biologist and directs one of Pasteur’s research units in association with the French National Scientific Research Centre (CNRS). Institut Pasteur’s reputation for excellence has long been proven through its contribution to the prevention and treatment of diseases around the globe, particularly infectious diseases, via its research, teaching and public health activities. Anne Dejean-Assémat, 2010 Laureate for Europe, is the third scientist to be selected from this prestigious institution, after Pascale Cossart in 1998 and Christine Petit in 2004.

An active citizen on all fronts
Today, this internationally recognized expert in marine toxicology sees herself above all as an active citizen in her home country, the Philippines.
“After devoting all my time to a relatively productive scientific career, I asked myself what I had really done to help my country and my Fellow citizens.” Alarmed by the high levels of poverty in rural areas of the Philippines, in 2001 she launched the Rural Livelihood Incubator (Rural Linc), an association that strives to create jobs and fight poverty and socio-political instability in rural areas.

Lourdes Cruz plans to use the money from the L’Oréal-UNESCO Award to buy land: “We will install a fruit processing plant for farmers, where local tribes can sell their products locally”, she explains. This active citizen uses science to fight poverty as she strives to create a better world.

Watch her portrait!

Each year nearly 8 million people die from cancer worldwide. To counter this plague, Professor Anne Dejean-Assémat has devoted her research to the study of the molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in the development of human cancers. She has made considerable progress in understanding cancer and has opened doors to the development of new medical procedures. For these considerable advances, this internationally renowned scientist was elected to the French Academy of Sciences in 2004 and named Chevalier de l’Ordre de la Légion d’Honneur in 2007.

An accomplished scientist
Anne Dejean-Assémat is well aware of the enormous pressures of her profession. Not only do scientists put a lot of pressure on themselves, she says, but they are also constantly evaluated by their peers, when publishing articles, seeking funding and creating or maintaining research facilities. Faced with the permanent challenge of international competition, Anne Dejean-Assémat claims “at some point, you must be able to say that your competitors do not necessarily know more than you do, and to keep on giving it all you’ve got!”
Yet these constraints failed to discourage this impassioned scientist, who is still persuaded that the future of the world depends on knowledge: “The future of a country lies in unprogrammed, unchannelled fundamental research, and scientists are part of a nation’s wealth that must not be squandered or disdained.” 

Watch her portrait!

A green researcher
“Green solutions for a sustainable world” is the motto of the Mexican scientist Alejandra Bravo. This internationally renowned biologist is working to show how toxins produced by certain bacteria called Bt can be used as biopesticides, an ecological way to control insect pests, unlike chemical products. Her research required a lot of determination because as a young researcher she had to start from scratch in her home country. Until then, no research had been conducted on Bt toxins at her university in Cuernavaca, Mexico.
She spent a year in Belgium at a company on the leading edge of this field, and on returning to Mexico, used this experience to create a specialised laboratory within her university. Today, she continues to play an active role in the development of biotechnologies in agriculture throughout Latin America. 

Vital research to face the current scientific challenges
Yet the combat of this avid supporter of scientific progress did not stop there. Alejandra is convinced that rapid technological advances must be harnessed to prevent diseases and combat future afflictions. “It took 13 years to sequence the human genome, but today we could do the work in a matter of months or even weeks! Genome mapping and other types of technology have changed our way of doing research.”

This is especially true since global warming will require even greater vigilance: “There will be changes in the populations of insect pests and new bacterial and viral epidemics,” she predicts. “It is vital that we continue to make scientific progress to solve these problems because they will affect food production and health.” 

Watch her portrait!

A staunch supporter of gender equality
Yet Elaine Fuchs is also fighting for another cause: to give women in science the place they deserve. She was encouraged to pursue a career in chemistry by the devoted women in her life, including her mother and her aunt, a biologist, who supported Elaine in her career choice. Her fight for gender equality began very early on when she discovered that her salary at the University of Chicago was lower than the starting salary of a male assistant professor in the same department. “I immediately felt an urgent need to remedy this situation”, she explains. Today she still deplores that women are less well represented in positions of responsibility, which means that fewer women are recognized for their scientific talent. Consequently, Elaine Fuchs is relentlessly fighting on two fronts, for gender equality and scientific progress. 

Watch her portrait !

Towards a vaccine against schistosomiasis
She has devoted a large part of her research to the development of a vaccine against schistosomiasis. Also known as bilharzia or “snail fever”, this tropical parasitic disease affects over 200 million people, making it one of the most devastating epidemics in the world, second only to malaria. A pioneer in understanding the biology of this parasite, Rashika El Ridi has high hopes that a vaccine will be developed within the next five years.

An independent researcher
While showing unfaltering resolve in her research, this Egyptian scientist has preserved her independence, which she says is vital. This independence can be seen in her determination to help advance science. “I have a hard time with the fact that we are on the verge of reaching the planet Mars, but we are incapable of developing effective vaccines against malaria, schistosomiasis or tuberculosis!”

A role model for all
She also treasures her independence on a more personal level: a renowned scientist with an exemplary career, she has never neglected her private life and her life as a woman. “Balancing the two roles is the price that must be paid for perfect personal satisfaction; a secure, well-respected job; financial independence; happiness and peace of mind.”
Thanks to her high-profile research, Rashika El Ridi was able to create immunology laboratories for her university. She has also worked relentlessly to find the financial resources to fund the research of dozens of students in Egypt.

Her constant devotion, her humanistic, proactive vision of science and her pioneering fight against a devastating disease are all qualities that make this woman a true role model for all scientists. 

Watch her portrait !

Those Fellowships give a boost to promising research and help the beneficiaries to build networks in the international community and acquire experience that they can later share when they return home.  

This year, the fellows have carried out their research in varied fields, at the forefront of the current scientific challenges and their projects fall under 4 main topics:

 1^st topic: Environmental protection and preservation of natural resources
- María Gabriela GEI from Costa Rica is a PhD student in Plant Ecology. She is working on the effects of the functional diversity of plants on the tropical forest ecosystem. Her Host institution is the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior at the University of Minnesota in the USA.
- Djoudi ROUKIA from the Comoros is a PhD student in Phytochemistry. She is working on Marine biomolecules of biological interest in the Comoros archipelago. Her Host institution is the Laboratory of Biomolecular and Environmental Chemistry at the University of Perpignan in France.
- Maria-Teresa GUARDIOLA-CLARAMONTE from Spain is a PhD student in Hydrology and Water resources. She is working on the Public Health and environmental implications of water recycling. Her Host institution is the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas in Aleppo, Syria, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK.
- Nawal BOUAYNAYNE from Morocco is a PhD student in Chemistry of natural substances. She is working on antiparasitic and cytotoxic activity of benthic seawood extracts from the Nador laggon (Morocco). Her Host institution is theFaculty of Pharmacy at the Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse, France.

 2^nd topic: New ideas in therapeutic treatments
- Elisabeth LENDOYE from Gabon is a PhD student in Physiology. She is developing a new pharmacological approach against type 2 diabetes. Her Host institution is the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis, France.
- Antima GUPTA from India  is a PhD student in Bacteriology. She is working on the development of an ex vivo model of resistance for testing new tuberculosis inhibitors. Her Host institution is the Department of Biological Sciences at the Birkbeck College, University of London, in the UK.
- Yifen TAN from Malaysia is a PhD student in Molecular Genetics. She is studying the functioning of small no-coding RNA in Pseudomonas Aeruginosa (an opportunistic pathogen). Her Host institution is the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at the Harvard Medical School in the USA.
- Marissa TEO from Singapore is a PhD student in Tumour Immunology. She is working on therapy using T cells for the treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (throat cancer) associated with Epstein Barr virus. Her Host institution is the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy, Baylor College of Medicine in Houston in the USA.

 3^rd topic : Understanding biological mechanisms
- Marietta Solange SOUPI NKEUTCHA from Cameroon is a PhD student in Plant Biotechnology. She is working on the role of Arabinogalactan proteins in Theobroma Cacao I. embryo development, genetic and molecular characterization. Her Host institution is the Laboratory of Chemistry of Natural Substances at the University of Limoges in France.
- Diana Marcela BOLANOS RODRIGUEZ from Colombia is a PhD student in Marine Biology. She is working on the implications of the regeneration models and processes of polyclad flatworms. Her Host institution is the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Lowell in the USA.
- Ghalia BOUBAKER from Tunisia is a PhD student in Molecular Biology. She is working on the molecular characterization of gene coding for the protein P-29 in the Echinocuccus granulosus and study of the intra- and interspecific polymorphism of the gene. Her Host institution is the Institute of Parasitology at the University of Bern in Switzerland.
- Svitlana YABLONSKA from Ukraine is a PhD student in Biochemistry. She is working on the role of micro-RNAs in cancers associated with human papillomavirus.  Her Host institution is the School of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh in the USA.

 4^th topic : Technology in the service of medicine
- Hadeer EL – DAKHAKHNI from Egypt is a PhD student in Biomaterials. She is working on the covering of phosphate components of Ca and titanium on metallic implants. Her Host institutions are the Institute of Physics and Chemistry of Materials in Strasbourg, France, and the National Research Centre, Biomaterials Department in Cairo, Egypt.
- Irène MARGIOLAKI from Greece is a PhD student in Structural Biology. She is working on deciphering the structure of viral proteins for the creation of antiviral drugs. Her Host institution is the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France.
- Margoth Mitchela MORENO VIGO from Peru is a PhD student in Proteomics. She is working on 2^nd generation techniques for analyzing the proteome. Her Host institution is the Severo Ochoa Molecular Biology Centre, Autonomous University of Madrid in Spain.

These 15 young women scientists will receive their fellowships at the UNESCO (Paris) on March 3rd, 2010. 

More news to come…!