efe.- Marie Curie, pioneer of women in science, from then to the present day, women have come a long way in this field and are winning positions, and the same is happening in Mexico.
Shared by Marion Emilie Genevieve, PhD in Immunology and Systems Biology and researcher at the Center for Biotechnology-FEMSA of Tecnológico de Monterrey, and Celine Rojas Schröter, a chemical engineering student at the same institution efe Their experiences as “women of science”.
Genevieve explained that the trigger for her immunology and systems biology specialty was a family episode when her mother was diagnosed with cancer and her body became very weak after chemotherapy treatment.
When he saw the condition of his mother, he thought that something could be done to improve the condition of such a patient.
“When my mother got sick, they gave her chemotherapy and it cured her cancer, but it also lowered the level of immune cells called neutrophils and she had an episode of infection,” she recalled.
She mentioned that since then what she has done during her doctorate and as a researcher at the Center for Biotechnology-FEMSA she continues to produce neutrophils is part of an ambitious project “because neutrophil transfusion is something that not available “
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“We transfuse blood, plasma and so on, but neutrophil transfusions don’t exist. There are a number of barriers that we are slowly breaking down. We produce human neutrophils from umbilical cord cells and hope for future cell therapy with large produce them at scale.
He indicated that the idea is that at some point this scientific advance could be useful for treating patients with cancer or other conditions that affect the immune system.
“It’s an issue that some people are working on, in Australia, in Canada, in the United States, in Germany and I’m in touch with them, it’s a network of people who want to achieve this,” he insisted.
women who inspire
Of French descent, Geneviève acknowledged that there are women in the history of science who have inspired her in her career, such as Marie Curie. He considered the French nationalized Polish physicist and chemist and pioneer in the field of radioactivity, as well as two Nobel laureates, an example.
“I think that, apart from Marie Curie, I mention her because she was French; Also Rosalind Franklin, who was a crystallographer and took the famous picture of the double helix and by looking at this picture, Watson and Crick understood how DNA was structured”, he mentioned about the scientists he most admired. Are.
award winning student
For his part, Rojas Schröter is also making up his own story, because at only 19 years old and a student at PrepaTec Eugenio Garza Lagüera he discovered that there was a reaction between a ferromagnetic liquid and a magnetic field that existed at that temperature. depending on what is given to him. liquid.
This contribution led the now university student to win the Romulo Garza Award in the category of high school student research projects.
“I didn’t really think I was going to win and one day they called me and told me I had won and that was it,” he remarked with great humility.
He expressed that the world of physics attracted his attention since he was a teenager.
“I liked it because I had a teacher whose exam was very specific, the first part was a normal exam, but the last question was an experiment on the table and we had to go and see what was happening, and come back and write what we and why we believe what’s happening is why it happens,” he recalled.
He attended secondary school at the Colegio Suejo de México and later continued his studies in Monterrey, Nuevo León (North).
As a representative of a new generation of women in the world of science, Rojas Schröter said that so far she has not found any difference between men and women, but she is sure that it was possible for the pioneers who paved the way.
“I am very grateful for this (did not face discrimination) but we know that most of my teachers are men now; Most of the men in my career are men and I believe if more girls join, I believe there will be more teachers later on”, she concluded.
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