Israeli female scientists win L’Oreal-UNESCO awards
07/19/2012 06:40
Dr. Ephrat Shema-Ya’acobi and Osnat Zomer-Pen receive NIS 50,000 apiece, while student Gili Bisker awarded NIS 10,000 prize.
Scientist at work (illustrative) Photo: Marretao22/Wikimedia Commons
Two young scientists and one nanoscience student received substantial prizes in
the L’Oreal-UNESCO competition for Women in Science on Tuesday night.
It
was the 14th year in which the awards were given here; now, the first two will
compete for the international prize, which an Israeli won for the last two years
in a row.
Dr. Ephrat Shema-Ya’acobi and Osnat Zomer-Pen received NIS
50,000 apiece, while student Gili Bisker was awarded a NIS 10,000 prize to help
promote her scientific career.
Among the judges who chose the winners
were Israel Science Academy president Prof. Ruth Arnon, Nobel Prize in Chemistry
laureate Prof. Ada Yonath (who herself received a L’Oreal- UNESCO award),
Ben-Gurion University president Prof.
Rivka Carmi, Open University
president Prof. Hagit Messer- Yaron, Shaare Zedek Medical Center geneticist
Prof.
Ephrat Levy-Lahad, industrialist Gad Propper and L’Oreal- Israel
CEO Nava Ravid.
Shema-Ya’acobi conducts molecular biology research at the
Weizmann Institute of Science on the use of proteins to fight cancer. Zomer-Pen
of Tel Aviv University works in the field of bioinformatics to understand the
genetic basis of autism.
Bisker is studying for her doctorate at the
Technion- Israel Institute of Technology and working on the use of nanoparticles
for slow release of medications.
Ravid said that when one woman scientist
who previously received a scientific award in the US was asked what was most
important to her in life, she said: “I will be a good mother when my science
succeeds.”
Today, said Ravid, studies have shown that women scientists
who manage both a scientific career and family raised their IQs.