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Meet the Women Scientists of TIME 100

2 minute read

It will surprise no one to learn that women are vastly underrepresented in the field of science. But in this year’s TIME 100, five outstanding women who are making huge strides in the fields of medicine, genetics, and infectious disease, made the list.

Read more about these five influential scientists.

Dr. Joanne Liu, International president of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)
Liu and her team at MSF were the first to respond to the Ebola outbreak in Guinea. Liu has become a leader in the outbreak, and has fiercely and publicly criticized the international community for its slow response to the outbreak.

Emmanuelle Charpentier & Jennifer Doudna, Creators of gene-editing technology
Charpentier and Doudna developed a groundbreaking gene-editing technique called CRISPR-Cas9, which allows scientists to add or remove genetic material as they please. The process has major implications for a variety of health problems from HIV to sickle cell anemia to cancer. In theory, CRISPR-Cas9 could be used to edit any human gene.

Dr. Pardis Sabeti, Geneticist who sequenced the Ebola genome from the most recent outbreak
Sabeti and her team are responsible for quickly sequencing the genome of the Ebola virus that has ravaged Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. The task was important, since it determined that the disease was indeed spreading from person to person. Many of her collaborators and fellow researchers died during the outbreak. When she’s out of the lab, Sabeti sings in a rock band.

Elizabeth Holmes, Health technology entrepreneur
Holmes is the CEO of Theranos, a blood testing company that has challenged the traditional lab testing model. She studied chemistry before dropping out of Stanford University her sophomore year to start her company, and at age 31 she made Forbes’ Billionaires List as the youngest self-made woman billionaire.

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