Women in Micro­bio­lo­gy Who Fought for...

...Equal­ity, Sci­ence, and our World!

In cel­e­bra­tion of In­ter­na­tional Women's Day – March 8 – we are de­lighted to fea­ture this guest-au­thored post.

by Mi­cro­bi­gals

In­ter­na­tional Women's day is all about em­brac­ing eq­uity! So, we'd love to share some of the amaz­ing women through­out his­tory and around the world that over­came hard­ships, fought for their rights to be sci­en­tists, and em­braced eq­uity! Their con­tri­bu­tions to other microbio­logists, to their com­mu­ni­ties, to women in STEM, have helped pave the way for the brighter fu­ture we live in to­day. While we still have a col­lec­tive jour­ney to fully reach in­clu­sion in mi­crobiology, these in­ter­na­tional sci­en­tists helped forge the path of mak­ing sci­ence ca­reers more ob­tain­able for women every­where!

Fig. 1. Cel­e­brat­ing In­ter­na­tional Women's Day 2023. Source: Mi­cro­bi­gals

Sev­eral coura­geous women through­out his­tory have over­come the bias of their day to sig­nificantly in­flu­ence the field of mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy. On this In­ter­na­tional Women's Day, we ce­le­brate some of our fa­vorite ones!

Zi­naida Er­molyeva 1898−1974.

Fig. 2. Top: Zi­naida Er­molyeva. Source. Bot­tom: Google doo­dle cel­e­brat­ing her. Source

Very few women rose to the top of the So­viet Union sci­en­tific com­mu­nity, but Zi­naida Yer­molyeva was de­ter­mined! Born in Rus­sia, Zi­naida Yer­molyeva is cred­ited as the "Mother of So­viet An­tibi­otics" and is fondly re­mem­bered as "Madame Peni­cillin." She was in­stru­men­tal in the de­vel­op­ment of ther­a­peu­tic uses of phages and peni­cillin in the So­viet Union, likely sav­ing many lives dur­ing World War II. Talk about brav­ery, al­though some would say reck­less­ness, Zi­naida made some of her dis­cov­er­ies on phage ther­apy by ex­per­i­ment­ing on her­self. She drank a so­lu­tion of Vib­rio cholerae and nearly died, but even­tu­ally re­cov­ered and gained new knowl­edge on how to treat cholera. Later, Er­molyeva and her lab as­sis­tant Tamara Balez­ina were sent to Stal­in­grad dur­ing the bat­tle against Hitler's Sixth Army. Con­di­tions were hor­rific as­they strug­gled to iden­tify molds that would be ef­fec­tive against in­fec­tious bac­te­ria as they had read about in pa­pers by Sir Alexan­der Flem­ing. They ended up find­ing an iso­late while in a dank air-raid shel­ter in a crack in the wall. This Peni­cil­lium led to the mass pro­duc­tion of first So­viet-made peni­cillin. Zi­naida also took charge of the rav­aged scene and through or­ga­niz­ing san­i­ta­tion pro­to­cols likely helped to save the city. She was clearly a force to be reck­oned with and one can only imag­ine the scene of this woman tak­ing charge in a war zone and sav­ing the day. Her ef­forts were later lauded as part of the rea­son for win­ning the war! Zi­naida was the in­spi­ra­tion for Ta­tiana, a char­ac­ter in Ve­ni­amin Kaverin's tril­ogy Open Book which pop­u­lar­ized mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy as a ca­reer choice for girls in the So­viet Union. She was hon­ored with a Google Doo­dle on Oc­to­ber 24, 2018, for her re­mark­able ca­reer and in­spi­ra­tion to young girls to pur­sue sci­ence ca­reers.

Mar­garet Jane Pittman 1901−1995.

Fig. 3. Mar­garet Jane Pittman. Source

There are few fe­male sci­en­tists who were more in­flu­en­tial to mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy than Mar­garet Jane Pittman. She not only worked with some of the world's worst in­fec­tious dis­eases of the 20th cen­tury – in­clud­ing, cholera, whoop­ing cough, tetanus, ty­phoid, menin­gi­tis, and con­junc­tivi­tis – but she col­lab­o­rated with some of the best sci­en­tists of the time to ad­vance our un­der­stand­ing of mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy and dis­eases. Mar­garet got her sci­en­tific start work­ing with her fa­ther, who was a physi­cian, by as­sist­ing him at his rural prac­tice in Arkansas, of­ten sur­pris­ing pa­tients by ad­min­is­ter­ing anes­the­sia for pro­ce­dures! In 1926, she won a fel­low­ship to pur­sue a Ph.D. It was then that she be­gan a ca­reer that would prove that women cer­tainly have much to con­tribute to the world of mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy.

She played an im­por­tant role at the Na­tional In­sti­tute of Health (NIH) and all around the world at var­i­ous uni­ver­si­ties and health agen­cies, study­ing in­fec­tious dis­eases and col­lab­o­rat­ing on vac­cine de­vel­op­ment. Dur­ing her life­time, she pub­lished over 100 ar­ti­cles be­fore her re­tire­ment in 1971. Even though she lived in a time be­fore "pub­lish or per­ish" was a slo­gan among sci­en­tists, she felt this pres­sure was chang­ing re­searchers' mo­ti­va­tion.

Ruth Ella Moore 1903−1994.

Fig. 4. Ruth Ella Moore. Source

Born in 1903, Ruth Ella Moore would live through both the Women's Rights and the Civil Rights move­ments in the United States. When she was young, no one en­vi­sioned that she would be­come the first Black Amer­i­can to re­ceive a Ph.D. in Bac­te­ri­ol­ogy. She was also the first Black mem­ber of the Amer­i­can So­ci­ety of Mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy. Ris­ing through the ranks, she be­came the Head of the De­part­ment of Bac­te­ri­ol­ogy at Howard Uni­ver­sity Med­ical Col­lege. To be more in­clu­sive of the mi­cro­bial world she re­named the de­part­ment to Mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy!

An un­stop­pable re­searcher, Ruth Ella Moore stud­ied some of the worst dis­eases that plague hu­man­ity in­clud­ing tu­ber­cu­lo­sis. Den­tal caries, an­tibi­otics, blood types, the gut mi­cro­biome, and im­munol­ogy are a just a few of the other top­ics she was pas­sion­ate about. Dr. Moore did face sex­ism and racism in her ca­reer though, as she was seg­re­gated at con­fer­ence meet­ings in sep­a­rate ho­tels. And she en­dures other slights, like not be­com­ing a tenured pro­fes­sor. But Ruth Ella Moore was re­silient and lived into her 90s hav­ing made many con­tri­bu­tions to mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy and wit­ness­ing much progress in her life­time. There's more to love about Ruth, she was also a tal­ented seam­stress and pas­sion­ate fash­ion­ista, mak­ing her own clothes from every­day wear to for­mal evening out­fits.
 

Jane Hin­ton 1919−2003.

Fig. 5. Left: Jane Hin­ton. Source. Right: Mueller-Hin­ton Agar an­tibi­ogram. Source

Jane Hin­ton was the daugh­ter of the well-re­spected mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gist William Au­gus­tus Hin­ton, Harvard's first black pro­fes­sor. William was very adamant that his daugh­ters re­ceive a great ed­u­ca­tion to the point that he moved his fam­ily to Eu­rope, where he be­lieved racism and sex­ism would be less promi­nent in his daugh­ters' ed­u­ca­tional jour­neys. Jane was an ac­tive girl, con­stantly par­tic­i­pat­ing in ex­tracur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties like or­ches­tra, the­ater, glee, bas­ket­ball, and stu­dent gov­ern­ment po­si­tions. It was clear from an early age she had the charisma and mo­ti­va­tion to make a mark in Amer­i­can his­tory. Jane be­came a re­search as­sis­tant to John Howard Mueller at Har­vard Med­ical School. To­gether they de­vel­oped the Mueller-Hin­ton Agar in 1941, a cul­ture medium still used in lab­o­ra­to­ries to­day to de­ter­mine an­tibi­otic re­sis­tance. Rare for the time, Jane never mar­ried and never had chil­dren. She re­tired at age 41 and spent the rest of her life do­ing what she loved, gar­den­ing and car­ing for her pets. She died in 2003 at 83 years old. (Small Things Con­sid­ered fea­tured Jane Hin­ton ear­lier here X.)

Jessie Is­abelle Price 1930−2015.

Fig. 6. Cor­nell Uni­ver­sity Duck Re­search Lab. Source

Did you eat any eggs this week? If you did, you might have Jessie Is­abelle Price to thank! Jessie was an Amer­i­can vet­eri­nary mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gist, and her an­i­mal of choice was the duck. Al­though we may not re­al­ize it, main­tain­ing healthy avian live­stock is a cru­cial part of our food sup­ply and vi­tal for keep­ing food prices rea­son­able. In the 1950s, the bac­terium Riemerella anatipes­tifer killed 10–30% of duck­lings and, in 1964, it was es­ti­mated this pathogen cost the in­dus­try about $250,000 (in 2023 dol­lars thats more than $2 mil­lion). Jessie was not only able to iso­late this bac­terium, but she also de­vel­oped a vac­cine – ini­tially in­jectable and later oral – against the dis­ease. In ad­di­tion to R. anatipes­tifer, Price also re­searched avian cholera and tu­ber­cu­lo­sis. She was the Chair of the Pre­doc­toral Mi­nor­ity Fel­low­ship Ad Hoc Re­view Com­mit­tee of the Amer­i­can So­ci­ety for Mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy (ASM), as well as the chair of the ASM's Sum­mer Re­search Fel­low­ship and Travel Award Pro­gram. In her free time, she en­joyed breed­ing Cor­gis, pho­tog­ra­phy, mu­sic, and trav­el­ing. She died of Alzheimer's dis­ease just a few years ago in 2015.

Where would we be to­day?

Imag­ine a world where these women's con­tri­bu­tions were never re­al­ized. Now imag­ine our world if every pos­si­ble sci­ence mind had a chance to con­tribute to sci­en­tific re­search through­out his­tory. Un­for­tu­nately, we can't go back and find those smart women who per­haps could have changed our sci­en­tific tra­jec­tory but were un­able to due to the prej­u­dices of their time. Women are very much still work­ing to over­come in­equity in all ar­eas, in­clud­ing sci­ence and acad­e­mia. We can how­ever learn lessons from the coura­geous women who did break through in their time to be­come cel­e­brated con­trib­u­tors to sci­ence.

Women and other mar­gin­al­ized groups must be en­cour­aged and sup­ported to flour­ish in their sci­en­tific en­deav­ors. As we turn to the mi­cro­bial world to un­cover ways to pre­vent dis­ease, con­nect mi­cro­bio­mes to our health and that of the planet to en­sure our fu­ture, we will need the best minds from all walks of life and em­ploy the per­sis­tence and brav­ery shown by the women who per­se­vered in a field they were not al­ways wel­comed in.

 

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Mi­cro­bi­gals is a sci­ence com­mu­ni­ca­tion busi­ness that loves to show that every­one and every­thing has their own unique mi­crobe mo­ment. Tess Deyett, Ph.D., is a pas­sion­ate bioin­for­mati­cian with a decade of ex­pe­ri­ence in mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy and mi­cro­bial ge­net­ics. Jon Mitchell is a mi­cro­biome re­searcher at a pharma­ceutical com­pany with a master's in mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy. Julie Grubaugh is a Se­nior Ap­pli­ca­tion An­a­lyst in the health­care in­dus­try and a my­cophile. To­gether they are Mi­cro­bi­gals, a blog and sci­ence pod­cast for the mi­cro­bially en­thused.