In 1999, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) released a study that documented how women faculty in its School of Science were afforded fewer resources and opportunities than men a discrepancy it attributed to unconscious biases that had marginalized women faculty “even in the light of obvious good will.” The report inspired policy changes at universities across the country that have made faculty resources more equitable. But a study released last month by MIT members (including the authors of this editorial) of the Boston Biotech Working Group (BBWG) now documents a similar problem at the interface of academia and industry: Fewer women than men faculty at MIT move their research discoveries into companies, and fewer serve as scientific advisers or on boards of directors. This disparity holds back women faculty and denies the full promise of innovation to the universities they work for, the biotech industry, and society at large.
MIT biologist on new initiative to address gender inequities in biotech
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MIT scientists launch Future Founders Initiative to solve biotech s missing women problem
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MIT scientists launch initiative to solve biotech s missing women problem
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Caption: The Future Founders Initiative aims to increase the fraction of MIT female faculty who found companies from less than 10 percent to 25 percent by 2024. Caption: Future Founders collaborators (clockwise from top left) Susan Hockfield, MIT president emerita; Harvey Lodish, professor of biology and biomedical engineering; and Sangeeta Bhatia, the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
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The gender disparity in biotech really got Sangeeta Bhatia’s attention while she was on sabbatical. Bhatia had taken a year to focus on her startup biotech company, Glympse Bio. The startup, inspired by bioengineering breakthroughs in Bhatia’s lab at MIT, advances biosensing technology and is now well-funded. But in 2018, Bhatia had to do what all startup founders have to do pitch ideas and court investors.