Hélène Merle-Béral is a doctor, Professor of Hæmatology at the University Pierre & Marie Curie Paris VI. She was previously Head of the Department of Biological Haematology at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital, Paris.
17 exceptional women have seen their scientific work rewarded with the Nobel Prize.
The first was Marie Curie, in 1903 (Physics) and 1911 (Chemistry), followed in 1935 by her daughter Irène Joliot-Curie (Chemistry), but other women have remained in the shadows. We know the biologists Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, prizewinner in 2008, Barbara McClintock (1983) and Rita Levi-Montalcini (1986), but who has ever heard of Linda Bach, Ada Yonath, Elisabeth Blackburn or You You Tu?
Where does their curiosity spring from? How do they reconcile scientific research and family life? How have they been treated by the scientific world?
Far from offering some kind of composite portrait of a Nobel Prize-winning woman, this is very lively series of biographies draws a picture of the diversity of personalities and social origins who have one thing in common: a fierce independence of spirit and an overwhelming sense of perseverance that beats all odds.