Tu Youyou is a Chinese medical scientist, pharmaceutical chemist, pharmacist, and educator. She is best known for discovering artemisinin (also known as qinghaosu) and dihydroartemisinin, both used to treat malaria. Her discovery saved millions of lives.
Her discovery of artemisinin and its treatment of malaria is regarded as a significant breakthrough of tropical medicine in the 20th century and health improvement for people of tropical developing countries in South Asia, Africa, and South America.
For her work, Tu received the 2011 Lasker Award in clinical medicine and the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura. Tu is the first Chinese Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine and the first citizen of the People’s Republic of China to receive the Nobel Prize in natural sciences, as well as the first Chinese person to receive the Lasker Award. She was born and educated and carried out research exclusively in China.
Text for today’s post was taken from Wikipedia.Please consider donating a few minutes to make a submission to Celebrate Women before the year is over.
Nina Tandon, CEO and cofounder of EpiBone, is revolutionizing medicine. Her company is the first in the world to use a patient’s stem cells to grow human bone that can then be used to repair bone defects like bone loss.
Ideally, these bones can be grown to the exact shape and size needed and are easily implanted into the body because they are made from the patient’s own cells. Tandon was named a TED senior fellow last year and she’s also one of Business Insider’s “40 under 40: People to watch in 2015.”
Text for today’s post was taken from the Business Insider piece “The 15 Most Amazing Women In Science Today”. Read even more about Nina and her company in the publication’s November 2014 profile here.
When archaeologist Katie Hunt was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at 22, it catalyzed a deeper curiosity about cancer as an ancient disease. Delving into ancient texts and analyzing ancient human remains, Hunt discovered cancer’s presence in antiquity — recorded as early as 1,500 BCE, and in skeletal remains from as early as 6,000 BCE — but no tools existed for rigorous scientific analysis.
So, with three other women in science, Casey Kirkpatrick, Jennifer Willoughby and Roselyn Campbell, Hunt launched the Paleo-Oncological Research Organization — a network of archaeologists, oncologists and cancer researchers working to develop scientific research standards and techniques — and an open source database of physical evidence of cancer from many eras and regions.
This growing field of paleo-oncology will raise interesting questions about how biology, culture and environment affect development of the disease, helping us better understand its prevention and treatment.
“Biological anthropology — a physical science in a gentle embrace with social science—happens to be a field predominantly led by women, so I have the fortune of working with brilliant woman scientists every day,” says Hunt. “While sexism still exists in our lives, I’m privileged to witness a world in which women in science is commonplace and celebrated… And science is stronger for it!”
“In DaVinci’s time when expertise in art and science had not yet matured to the polarized state in which they exist today, they coexisted naturally. Of course, science’s level of sophistication back then was quite different. But from where I sit as the president of the Rhode Island School of Design, it is clear to me that even current practices in scientific research have much to gain by involving artists in the process early and often.”
Shown here is a general view of acetylene welding at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Fixed Nitrogen Research Laboratory located in Washington, D.C. The man visible in the photograph is identified as J.J. Connor. This photograph is believed to have been taken in the electrical shop located at the Laboratory.
As Women’s History Month begins, I find myself wishing I’d planned a series of blog posts about amazing women in history (similar to my daily posts for horror movies in October); unfortunately, however, I only thought of this today and this month is looking to be a beast, so that won’t be happening. I’m going to try to post more than once this month, but I can make no promises! I wanted to begin…
