[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 192 (Tuesday, November 10, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6639-S6640]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              TRIBUTE TO ANDREA GHEZ, AND WOMEN IN SCIENCE

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, more, perhaps, than any event in our 
lifetimes, the COVID-19 pandemic has focused our minds on the life-and-
death value of scientific research and discovery.
  As the entire world waits anxiously for safe, effective, affordable 
vaccines and medical treatments that can protect us against this deadly 
virus, the recent announcements of the 2020 Nobel Prizes in science 
gives us reasons for hope.
  While the new Nobel science laureates are not themselves involved in 
COVID-19 research, collectively, they have found answers to some of the 
most fundamental questions in science, they have made medical 
discoveries that have already saved millions of lives worldwide and may 
one day soon enable us to cure cancer and other deadly diseases.
  There is another reason to be hopeful about the 2020 Nobel science 
laureates. For only the second time in history, women scientists 
received two of the three Nobel science prizes, for physics and for 
chemistry. And for the first time ever, two women won a Nobel science 
award for research they pioneered on their own, without the help of 
male colleagues. Their achievements underscore why we need to continue 
clearing hurdles for women and girls as they navigate careers in 
science, technology, engineering, and math. We can't afford to ignore 
the scientific potential of half of our society. We need all hands on 
deck.
  Let me tell you about these new Nobel science laureates.
  The 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to Jennifer Doudna and 
Emmanuelle Charpentier for their work on CRISPR-Cas9, a revolutionary 
advancement in biomedical science that enables scientists to edit and 
change DNA with high precision.
  Jennifer Doudna is an American biochemist at the University of 
California, Berkeley, and Emmanuelle Charpentier is a French 
microchemist and director of the Max Planck Institute for Infection 
Biology in Berlin. They are the sixth and seventh women in history to 
receive the chemistry prize and the first all-women team to receive a 
Nobel in any science.
  In less than a decade since the pair wrote a paper demonstrating the 
power of CRISPR-Cas9, the technique has

[[Page S6640]]

transformed how basic science is done. Scientists are using CRISPR to 
ask fundamental questions about life, such as which genes are essential 
to a cell's survival. Doctors are testing it as a cure for genetic 
conditions such as sickle cell disease and hereditary blindness, and 
plant scientists are using it to create new crops.
  People in my home State of Illinois are especially proud of Andrea 
Ghez, a 2020 Nobel physics laureate who grew up in Chicago and was 
encouraged to pursue a career in science by a gifted teacher at the 
University of Chicago Laboratory School.
  Dr. Ghez, director of the UCLA Galactic Center Group, received the 
Nobel for her pioneering research on the supermassive black hole at the 
center of our galaxy. She describes her research as ``extreme 
astrophysics.'' Her discoveries have enabled scientists to explore 
black holes and their fundamental role in the evolution of the 
universe.
  Dr. Ghez and her team conduct their research at the W.M. Keck 
Observatory in Hawaii. She is only the fourth woman to receive the 
physics prize. She shares half of the prize with Reinhard Genzel of UC 
Berkeley and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in 
Berlin. The other half of the prize was awarded to Roger Penrose of the 
University of Oxford.
  Dr. Ghez has earned numerous honors for her research, including 
election to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy 
of Arts and Sciences. In 2019, she was awarded an honorary degree by 
Oxford University.
  When she was a girl, she wanted to be the first woman to walk on the 
moon. She attributes her love of science partly to a woman who taught 
her nearly 40 years ago at the University of Chicago Laboratory School. 
Judith Keane was the only woman in the Lab School's physical sciences 
department. Dr. Ghez has said how important it was for her to see a 
woman in that role.
  For much of history, women's involvement in science has been 
discouraged and their achievements have been ignored. Nevertheless, 
they have persisted. A few examples:
  In 1903, Marie Curie became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize 
for Physics, for her discovery of radioactivity. She won the Nobel 
Prize in Chemistry 8 years later for her work in isolating pure radium. 
She remains the only woman in history to ever win the Nobel twice and 
the only human to ever win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences.
  Rachel Carson was a marine biologist and environmentalist whose 
groundbreaking book, ``Silent Spring,'' helped launch the modern 
environmental movement.
  Rosalind Franklin, a British chemist and molecular biologist, was one 
of the key figures behind unlocking the structure of human DNA, 
although her contributions went largely unrecognized.
  Barbara McClintock was an American geneticist and the only woman ever 
to have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine by herself. In 1993 
she won the the Nobel Prize for her discovery of the ``jumping gene'' 
or the ability of genes to change position on the chromosome.
  Ruth Rogan Benerito was a chemist and pioneer in bioproducts who 
spent most of her career at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She is 
credited with saving the cotton industry in post-WWII America through 
her discovery of a process to produce wrinkle-free, stain-free, and 
flame-resistant cotton fabrics.
  Navy Rear Admiral Grace Hopper first developed computer languages and 
a compiler to translate them into machine code. She developed computer 
languages written in English, rather than mathematical notation, 
including COBOL, which is still in use today.
  Katherine Johnson was an African-American mathematician and NASA 
space scientist who made enormous contributions to America's space 
programs by her incorporation of computing tools. She calculated key 
trajectories for America's first manned space flight and for the 1969 
Apollo 11 flight to the moon.
  Mae Jemison is a physician, chemist, biologist, and a former NASA 
astronaut. As a girl growing up on the South Side of Chicago, she was 
inspired to become an astronaut after watching Star Trek's Lt. Uhuru, 
the only Black woman aboard the Starship Enterprise. In 1992, she 
became the first Black woman to travel into space.
  Despite the achievements of these and other women, the tradition in 
science of excluding women and other underrepresented groups at 
prestigious scientific meetings and conferences is so pervasive that 
some scientists sometimes refer wryly to such panels as ``manels.''
  Dr. Francis Collins is director of the National Institutes of Health 
and a brilliant scientist. In June 2019, he announced that he would no 
longer speak at any science conference where women and other minority 
scientists were not included. He challenged other leaders in bioscience 
to do the same. Fortunately, some are. More should. As I said, we need 
all hands on deck.
  I will close with this. About a week after the 2020 Nobel Prizes 
announcements, the winner of the 2020 3M Young Scientist Challenge was 
announced. That is the Nation's top science prize for middle schoolers. 
It carries a $25,000 award.
  The winner this year is a 14-year-old Indian-American girl from 
Frisco, TX, Anika Chebrolu. Two years ago, she began studying the 
Spanish Influenza of 1918 that killed at least 50 million people 
worldwide. Last year, she came with a bad case of the seasonal flu 
herself and threw herself into finding a cure. She discovered a 
molecule that may lead to the development of a new antiviral drug to 
treat COVID. The molecule binds to the spiky protein of the novel 
coronavirus and inhibits the spread of the virus into human cells.
  Supporting the achievements of girls and women in STEM fields can 
help solve some of the greatest afflictions of our time and solve some 
of the deepest mysteries of our universe. It is a profoundly wise 
investment. Congratulations to the new women Nobel science laureates of 
2020. May there be many more who follow in their footsteps.
   (At the request of Mr. Durbin, the following statement was ordered 
to be printed in the Record.)

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