Teaching science in high school has brought me to admire the intelligence of female scientists and their discoveries in cancer and infectious diseases.

Here are some examples:

• Gertrude Elion (1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and the mother of chemotherapy), who developed the principles of rational drug design. Despite all her acknowledgments, she once faced discrimination in universities and couldn’t get a job because she was a woman.

• Tu Youyou (2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine) has helped 200 million people defeat malaria. I did not know that the scientist who discovered and elucidated the mechanism of action of Artemisinin, a life-saving drug, was a woman.

• The discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure would not have been possible if Watson and Crick never saw Rosalind Franklin’s X-ray diffraction notes.

• Just recently, the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to two women, Dr. Charpentier and Dr. Doudna, for their discovery of CRISPR/Cas9, an important tool in genetic engineering and medicine.

Numerous female scientists have endured in the glooms of their male foils. But now, more and more women are getting recognized in the field of science, and I couldn’t be better-off. Is it because they are women? To me, it is because they are brilliant scientists. Conceivably the first phase to alluring more female scientists is to stop putting “female” before their job labels. They are scientists, not “female” scientists, and their contributions should speak for themselves. “Dazzling scientists” resonances more like it.

I have always been inspired by these scientist who proved their worth and place in the field of science that is usually dominated by male. As a teacher, I hope that, among my students, I am making a scientist worthy of emulation.

By: Marjorie F. Bravo | Teacher 1 | Olongapo City Nation High School