Six women, six Italian scientists awarded for their research; rewarded in a virtual ceremony, but in a very concrete way from an economic point of view. L’Oréal Italia today announced the six winners of the Italian edition of the L’Oréal-UNESCO Award “For Women and Science” in the presence of the Minister for Equal Opportunities and the Elena Bonetti Family. Also in this edition, six scholarships worth € 20,000 each were awarded to as many under-35 researchers, on the basis of the recognized excellence of their projects in the fields of life and material sciences. The announcement of this edition has collected 320 applications from all over Italy.
THE SIX AWARDS AND THEIR RESEARCH PROJECTS
The jury, composed of a panel of distinguished Italian university professors and scientific experts and chaired by Professor Lucia Votano, Research Director emeritus of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics, after a careful evaluation has selected the six most deserving researchers for their projects in the field of STEM.
Livia Archibugi
Project – Pancreatic cancer: hunting for molecular mechanisms that predict the response to chemotherapy
Host Institute: San Raffaele Hospital (Milan), Clinical and Translational Research Center on Pancreas, Biliopancreatic Endoscopy and Ecoendoscopy Unit
Elisa Pellegrini
Project – Death of reed beds and climate change: where is the link?
Host institution: Department of Agri-Food, Environmental and Animal Department of the University of Udine, Soil Biochemistry Laboratory
Letizia De Chiara
Project – Renal polyploid cells: a new tool for the prevention of chronic kidney disease
Host Institute: Department of Experimental and Clinical Biomedical Sciences-University of Florence
Ornella Juliana Piccinni
Project – Gone with the wave: detection of extreme objects as remnants of gravitational wave events in the data of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA interferometers
Host Institute: National Institute of Nuclear Physics
Natalia Bruno
Project – AQTRESS – Atomic Quantum Technologies for Reliable Engineering of Solid State devices – Atomic quantum technologies for the design of solid state devices
Host Institute: National Institute of Optics of the National Research Council (CNR-INO) based at the Scientific Pole of Sesto Fiorentino, European Laboratory of Non-linear Spectroscopy (LENS) and Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Florence.
Lorena Baranda Pellejero
Project – Synthesis of functional molecules mediated by clinically relevant biomarkers through the use of systems based on synthetic DNA
Host Institute: University of Rome Tor Vergata, Department of Chemical Sciences and Technologies, Laboratory of Biosensors and Nanomachines
L’Oréal and UNESCO have been involved for 23 years with the “For Women in Science”, The first international award dedicated to women working in the scientific sector. Since 1998, 3,600 female researchers have been supported in their career in 117 countries. Five of these scientists, after winning the L’Oréal-UNESCO prize, have been awarded the Nobel Prize: among them Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020.
Francois-Xavier Fenart, President and CEO of L’Oréal Italia, comments: “This year we all had a clear awareness of how necessary scientific research is. Indeed, it is science that has provided us with the answer to tackle a global pandemic that had frozen our lives. This is why this year we are particularly proud to reward these six young researchers, so that they can carry out their research projects in Italy and so that they become role models, examples to follow and emulate, for their colleagues and for all. young women and girls. To date we have awarded 100 scholarships in Italy, an important milestone that pushes us to continue to engage in this path that began nineteen years ago, convinced that female researchers can and should contribute to scientific progress and that they are crucial to achieving the objectives. of sustainable development on which to build our future “.
Enrico Vicenti, Secretary General of the Italian National Commission for UNESCO, declares: “Katalin Karikó, also known as KK, is the Hungarian biochemist and researcher who has dedicated her career to the development of the innovative gene therapy based on mRNA, used for the first COVID-19 vaccine. She is an exceptional ambassador of our motto “The world needs science and science needs women” as well as a shining example, for the young researchers awarded today and in previous editions, and for all women, of what their contribution is important for our future. Having only a third of female researchers worldwide, of which very few in top positions, is a huge waste of talent and opportunities: the UNESCO – L’Oréal Award “For Women and Science” in the last 19 years has stubbornly and in advance on the times actively contributed to supporting young researchers in their research projects and in their professional career. Gender inequality in research and STEM disciplines is still very large, together with L’Oréal we want to continue to do our part to reduce it ”.
The awards event and the open talk held today to share and deepen data, experiences and proposals on gender equality in scientific research hosted the speeches by François Xavier Fenart, President and CEO of L’Oréal Italia, by Elena Bonetti , Minister for Equal Opportunities and the Family, by Maria Cristina Messa, Minister of University and Research, who sent a video message, by Enrico Vicenti, Secretary General of the National Commission for UNESCO, by Professor Lucia Votano, of Francesca Santoro, Head of the Tissue Electronics Lab IIT, by Linda Raimondo, student of Physics at the University of Turin and science popularizer on TV and on social networks and Enrico Bucci, Adjunct Professor, Sbarro Institute-Temple University Department of Biology, Philadelphia.