Five women are awarded the L'Oréal-Unesco for their contributions to scientific research

The L’Oreal-Unesco award “For women in science”, delivered on Thursday to five researchers from different fields, awarded a Katalin Kariko, a scientist for her work on messenger RNA in the fight against Covid-19, as well as the scientists María Guadalupe Guzmán Tirado and María Ángela Nieto Toledano for their contributions to science.

This international award, endowed with 100,000 euros (115,000 dollars) for each winner, seeks to be a boost in the career of female scientists from the five continents as well as “to fight against the obstacles they encounter”, detail the L “Oreal Foundation and UNESCO in a statement.

In North America, the winner was the professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Katalin Kariko , who made “an exceptional contribution to the improvement of the technology known as Messenger RNA “which allowed” a decisive step in the creation of vaccines against covid- 19 “, like those of Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna.

This 66-year-old researcher of Hungarian origin is, in turn, the senior vice president of the German laboratory BioNTech, an ally of the firm Pfizer.

In the case of Europe, the award was given to the Spanish María Ángela Nieto Toledano , specialist in embryology of the Institute of Neurosciences of San Juan de Alicante, for “opening the way for the development of new therapeutic approaches” against the cancer .

The winner of Latin America and the Caribbean, the Cuban María Guadalupe Guzmán Tirado , of the Institute of Tropical Medicine of Havana, was rewarded for his pioneering work in the cure of dengue .

Hailan Hu , from Zhejiang University (China), was awarded for its neuroscience research on “new generation” drugs against depression.

For Africa, the winner was Agnes Binagwabo , Kigali Global Health Equity University (Rwanda), whose research allowed “better access to the services of fight against HIV , malaria and tuberculosis. “