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Most scientists who played key roles in this Nobel Prize-winning breakthrough disappeared from public memory. Why does this injustice persist 40 years later?
In 1997, the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) in New York celebrated the 20th anniversary of the discovery of RNA splicing. The first coauthor of the CSHL paper announcing the discovery Louise Chow, was not invited to the celebration, even though first authorship usually implies a central role in the work. Richard J. Roberts from CSHL, who was one of Chow's coauthors, and Philip A. Sharp from a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that had published a parallel paper, were the centers of attention, as if they alone had made the discovery. Apparently, as the sole winners of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded for the research, Roberts and Sharp made more desirable guests than those who had been excluded from this most coveted scientific award.
A similar affront occurred in 2017, when CSHL celebrated the 40th anniversary of the discovery: The organizers included Sharp and James D. Watson, who had been the director of CSHL at the time of the discovery in 1977. Chow was initially placed in one of many panels, as if she were just another new arrival in the now-crowded world of RNA splicing. She refused to accept such an inappropriate slot. Finally, Chow and Richard Gelinas, who was second author on their discovery paper, were each permitted to speak for eight minutes during the opening historical session. Other speakers were allotted the customary 20 minutes.
This event made it clear that four decades later, leading scientists remained interested in maintaining the status quo, rather than seizing the opportunity to reassess the relationship between the present and the past. As a historian of molecular biology and editor of two volumes on scientific anniversaries, I was barely able to get a one-day voucher to attend the opening "historical" session in 2017 and was surprised to realize that, then and now, what mattered most was not what really happened in the past but who can control the narrative.
The lack of recognition for women who played a key role in high-profile discoveries is especially evident in the paucity of women among Nobel Laureates...