Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News Feature
  • Published:

A giant leap for womankind

Nature Medicine volume 25, pages 704–707 (2019)Cite this article

This article has been updated

Around the time that Nature Medicine launched 25 years ago, there was talk about the ‘leaky pipeline’ in biomedicine — a metaphor that describes how the number of women in the research workforce drops precipitously at ascending career stages, leaving few women in top leadership positions in labs. We’ve covered the topic continuously over the last quarter-century. In a 2001 article, we noted that “[d]ata show that women leave science careers twice as frequently as men” (Nat. Med. 7, 637, 2001), and a commentary we published a year later stated that “If the culture is to change, women must not only be recruited for senior faculty jobs, but also for key leadership positions in the administrations of medical research institutions” (Nat. Med. 8, 439–441, 2002). But the pipeline continues to leak.

We asked 11 thought leaders on how they would advise the research community to make real progress in the next 25 years to address gender inequality in medical research. They offer concrete ideas for change. Here are their prescriptions for advancement.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Change history

  • 08 May 2019

    In the version of this article originally published, the introduction stated that 10 thought leaders were interviewed. It should have stated that 11 thought leaders were interviewed. The error has been corrected.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Unaffiliated: twowomensci@gmail.com

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

    Hannah Valantine

  2. MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

    Elizabeth Travis

  3. Science in Australia Gender Equity, Acton, Australia Capital Territory, Australia

    Wafa El-Adhami

  4. Center for Genomic Regulation, Barcelona, Spain

    Isabelle Vernos

  5. European Research Council’s Gender Balance Working Group, Brussels, Belgium

    Isabelle Vernos

  6. Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Laura Mosqueda

  7. Eschelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Elizabeth Wayne

  8. Department of Molecular Reproduction, Development and Genetics, Indian Institute of Science Bengaluru, Bengaluru, India

    Sandhya S. Visweswariah

  9. Women in Science Panel, Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, India

    Sandhya S. Visweswariah

  10. Wuraola Akande-Sholabi, Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacy Administration, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria

    Wuraola Akande-Sholabi

  11. ASAPbio, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Jessica Polka

  12. Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Jessica Polka

Authors
  1. Hannah Valantine
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Elizabeth Travis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Wafa El-Adhami
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Isabelle Vernos
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Laura Mosqueda
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Elizabeth Wayne
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Fiona Kearns-Zimmerman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Lauren Bonefont
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Sandhya S. Visweswariah
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  10. Wuraola Akande-Sholabi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  11. Jessica Polka
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Valantine, H., Travis, E., El-Adhami, W. et al. A giant leap for womankind. Nat Med 25, 704–707 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-019-0446-y

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-019-0446-y

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing