Viruses (Jul 2022)

Women in the European Virus Bioinformatics Center

  • Franziska Hufsky,
  • Ana Abecasis,
  • Patricia Agudelo-Romero,
  • Magda Bletsa,
  • Katherine Brown,
  • Claudia Claus,
  • Stefanie Deinhardt-Emmer,
  • Li Deng,
  • Caroline C. Friedel,
  • María Inés Gismondi,
  • Evangelia Georgia Kostaki,
  • Denise Kühnert,
  • Urmila Kulkarni-Kale,
  • Karin J. Metzner,
  • Irmtraud M. Meyer,
  • Laura Miozzi,
  • Luca Nishimura,
  • Sofia Paraskevopoulou,
  • Alba Pérez-Cataluña,
  • Janina Rahlff,
  • Emma Thomson,
  • Charlotte Tumescheit,
  • Lia van der Hoek,
  • Lore Van Espen,
  • Anne-Mieke Vandamme,
  • Maryam Zaheri,
  • Neta Zuckerman,
  • Manja Marz

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/v14071522
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 14, no. 7
p. 1522

Abstract

Read online

Viruses are the cause of a considerable burden to human, animal and plant health, while on the other hand playing an important role in regulating entire ecosystems. The power of new sequencing technologies combined with new tools for processing “Big Data” offers unprecedented opportunities to answer fundamental questions in virology. Virologists have an urgent need for virus-specific bioinformatics tools. These developments have led to the formation of the European Virus Bioinformatics Center, a network of experts in virology and bioinformatics who are joining forces to enable extensive exchange and collaboration between these research areas. The EVBC strives to provide talented researchers with a supportive environment free of gender bias, but the gender gap in science, especially in math-intensive fields such as computer science, persists. To bring more talented women into research and keep them there, we need to highlight role models to spark their interest, and we need to ensure that female scientists are not kept at lower levels but are given the opportunity to lead the field. Here we showcase the work of the EVBC and highlight the achievements of some outstanding women experts in virology and viral bioinformatics.

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