Women scientists

"THE SECRET of life" was the way Francis Crick described DNA's structure when he announced its discovery 50 years ago.

DNA is deoxyribonucleic acid, and the discovery of its double-helix structure, now well known to anyone who's taken at least a high school biology course, propelled humanity forward in our understanding of genetics, leading us to where we are today with genetics and biotechnology and their promises (and perils).

DNA's structure is considered so important that science associations and publications all around the world are taking time out to mark the 50th anniversary of its discovery. The activities range from ponderous and scholarly symposia to tongue-in-cheek DNA cocktails (gin, curacao, strawberries and pineapple, served in a test tube) and a DNA Double Helix Dance (the couple gets to bind and unbind like DNA).

All through these celebrations, we will hear the names James Watson and Francis Crick over and over again as the ones who unraveled DNA's structure. Sometimes there will be passing references to Maurice Wilkins, who shared the Nobel Prize with Watson and Crick for their work on DNA.

Rarely do we hear of a woman whose contributions were as important as those of Watson, Crick and Wilkins. She was Rosalind Elsie Franklin, a chemist, who first mastered the use of X-ray crystallography to photograph a sample of DNA and to propose it had a helical shape.

Maurice Wilkins, who was Rosalind Franklin's boss, eventually showed the DNA X-ray to Watson and Crick. It was a valuable clue that got the two men corresponding with Franklin, and eventually conceptualizing DNA as a double helix.

Unfortunately, Franklin died in 1957 from cancer. Watson, Crick and Wilkins received the Nobel Prize in 1962 and Franklin was completely forgotten, as are many women who work in the sciences.

After reading about Rosalind Franklin, I had to pause and think very hard for names of women scientists. From anthropology, there are the revered Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead, the latter a free spirit who roamed the world and who visited the Philippines in the 1960s and urged the creation of a Philippine Social Science Council.

Marie Curie and her work on X-rays came to my mind. Then I thought of the biological sciences. There was Rachel Carson, whose pioneering work on DDT contamination in the late 1950s, written up in the book "The Silent Spring," triggered off environmental activism.

There was also Barbara McClintock, who first showed genes could move around within chromosomes-the jumping genes theory. She proposed this theory early in the 20th century, at a time when very little was known about genetics. McClintock spent her whole life working on genetics but her work was acknowledged with a Nobel Prize only in 1983, when she was 81 years old.

Not quite as lucky was the Chinese-American physicist Wu Chieng Shiung. In 1957, while teaching at New York's Columbia University, she devised an experiment to confirm a theory proposed earlier by two male physicists. A Nobel Prize was awarded to the two men, but not to Wu.

Science laboratories are usually filled with women, but the division of labor we find out in the "real world" is reflected even there: women doing the detailed and tedious work that may eventually lead to some discovery, to be announced by their male supervisors and bosses.

Because we rarely hear of great women scientists, young girls grow up, too, rarely thinking of a career in the sciences, especially the natural sciences. In other cases, women may actually be discouraged by parents and relatives from entering these fields.

When we go back in history, we find that efforts of women to even dabble in science were sometimes rebuffed. Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, a 17th-century Mexican nun, was a Renaissance woman who composed poetry and music while doing astronomy. Her convent cell, filled with scientific instruments and thousands of books, was said to have drawn a constant stream of visitors. Sor Juana was a prolific writer and a staunch advocate of women's education, a radical idea in her time. Eventually, the archbishop ordered all her books and instruments confiscated, and put an end to her writing.

In Western countries, there are more efforts now to acknowledge the contributions of women scientists. We should be doing the same thing in the Philippines, properly acknowledging the role of women in science and medicine. This is not an academic exercise. We badly need new female role models besides actresses and politicians and actress-politicians.

I think back to my undergraduate training and remember one of my favorite professors was Dr. Clara Syliangco, who made biochemistry, usually considered a terrifying subject to take, such a pleasurable learning experience. And despite early efforts to block women from medical schools, the field of medicine in the Philippines is filled with brilliant and innovating women. I will be partial here and cite my former "boss" (really more of a mother), Dr. Mita Pardo de Tavera. Mamita recently turned over to Ateneo's women's studies library more than 400 medical articles she authored, mainly on tuberculosis but many also dealing with public health, drawn from her years of working with communities.

I'll end with a light historical footnote to show how gender affects science, even in the way discoveries are announced. Feb. 28 is designated as the anniversary of the discovery of DNA's structure because it was on that date, back in 1953, that Francis Crick walked into the Eagle pub in Cambridge for a lunch time drink, and announced, "We have discovered the secret of life."

Now do you think a woman would have made a similar move? Maybe a better question is, would a woman have had the time to drop by the pub after a long day at the lab, with more work waiting at home?