3 minute read
Anja Groth
anja groth nominated by edith heard
A particularly formative experience for Anja took place when, during her master’s in Biochemistry, she worked at St Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, where they treat children with brain tumours. This had a big impact on Anja; suddenly her research into the role of oncogenes became extremely important. She returned to Denmark to do her PhD at the Danish Cancer Society, where she worked on DNA damage. There, her fascination with chromatin was borne. Since 2008, she has been running a lab at the University of Copenhagen’s Biotech Research and Innovation Centre.
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In Denmark, as in the UK, the number of men and women that enter the life sciences is roughly equal, and remains constant through PhD and post-doctorate levels. The transition from post-doc to principle investigator (PI) is where the profession loses a number of talented women.
I ask if there are any signs of this changing in Denmark. “Yes, I’m sure we can address the gender imbalance. I see very talented, driven women in my lab everyday, and if we give them the right conditions, I’m certain they will continue to advance independently in science.”
Ungrounded Doubts
Anja thinks that the low number of women senior scientists is partly a consequence of family commitments, but she also believes that many talented women doubt their capabilities as future leaders more than their male colleagues. “But such doubts are ungrounded,” she says. “No one in science will be selected for a PI position unless they’re qualified for it. It’s very important for women to have encouragement, for their mentors and supervisors to highlight their contributions and potential as future scientific leaders.”
In Denmark there’s a tendency for younger women to get embarrassed by the gender issue in science, she says. “Some young women don’t feel they should be favoured over their male colleagues, but there are still a lot of barriers that we need to talk about in order to tackle them.”
Anja doesn’t think everything can be solved by role models or soft skill initiatives like career development workshops. “The life of a PI has challenges when combined with family life, and many don’t find it attractive enough. I don’t think many women today would choose an academic career at the cost of family, so it’s
Anja Groth
absolutely essential that we make initiatives that allow women to combine family with a scientific career.”
Not Enough Money
“There’s a lot of people who wish to solve this issue, and a lot of activities that try to address the problem. But there’s not enough money put into it, for example, to build infrastructure such as day-care facilities specifically tailored for researchers.”
Eu-Life
How does the University of Copenhagen encourage women to stay in the life sciences? Anja says the university is part of an organisation called EU-Life, and she is a member of the group heading an application urging the EU to make gender initiatives. “For instance, we can equip our post-docs better before they make the decision as to whether they should pursue an academic career or not. Right now, they get a lot of research training, doing experiments at the bench, but they also need some of the soft skills, such as how to handle interactions with editors, so they know what is required of a PI. Once you know, it stops being mission impossible and becomes achievable. It’s always better to make your choice of career on an enlightened basis. The more you know about the PI job, the more likely you are to make the right decision to pursue it or not. At least you won’t choose not to because you doubt your own abilities.”
This is where female role models can help, and Anja sees herself as one. “This is obvious. There are not a lot of female PIs and the number of girls that apply to my lab is higher than the number of males. I have a lot of interaction with younger women who seek inspiration about building a scientific career and research group.”
“I very much enjoy going to exhibitions, particularly sculpture and photography. It gives me room for tranquillity and thinking. I did that a lot when I was in my postdoc years in Paris. The tranquillity and thinking about something really different helps to wipe the board clean and come up with new ideas.”
