Women in Medicinal Chemistry: Ad Maiora!

Abstract

Journal of Medicinal Chemistry is proud to share the release of its first special issue dedicated to "Women in Medicinal Chemistry", jointly published with ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters.We were overwhelmed at the level of interest following the Call for Papers for this special issue. 1 The number of submissions received was high, far more than we anticipated. We interpret this large response in two ways. First, we believe that the female medicinal chemistry community has an enduring enthusiasm to be more visible and to support initiatives that foster the career development of women in medicinal chemistry. This is a positive sentiment, especially in a time where securing a realistic amount of funding to do highlevel research is harder than ever all over the world. Second, this is a sign that the issues of gender balance and, more appropriately, gender equity in our field remain a hot topic. Thus, on behalf of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, we express our sincere thanks to all the female authors who commit their time and knowledge to advancing medicinal chemistry and whose outstanding research is showcased in this issue.At the same time, our appreciation goes to all the others, especially the young investigators who did not have the chance to be included in this issue, due to either the preliminary nature of their work or insufficient time to complete the necessary revisions after review assessment. We are confident that they will use reviewers' suggestions to mature and elevate their eventual research output to higher standards. We want to remind them that they are highly valued; we encourage them to remain in the field and want to support systemic changes needed to ensure women have the opportunity to thrive across every stage of their career.The capacity to beat the odds and bounce back despite failures is recognized as one reason for both men and women to succeed in such hard but wonderful careers like ours. 2 The numerous articles selected and published in this issue cover a wide range of therapeutic areas, from oncology to CNS and infectious diseases. Perspectives and a Drug Annotation are also important contributions in this issue. A special mention goes to the Miniperspective published by five graduate students from the Department of Medicinal Chemistry of the University of Minnesota. 3 The lucid and profound analysis they have made from the peculiar point of view of graduate researchers is a true inspiration to the whole community.We also thank all male medicinal chemists who contributed to this issue either with their scientific works or with assisting us in the review process as editors and referees.Helping male mentors to understand the experience women scientists face so that they can more effectively guide them in their careers was one of the main triggers of our initiative. 4 As highlighted by Carole Greider in her Nobel prize interview, supportive male mentors can impact not only individual woman's careers but also an entire field. 5 It is evident from this special issue that women are contr...

How Diverse Is Medicinal Chemistry? Insights into Race, Ethnicity, Origin, Gender, and Geography

“…It is worth noting that the highest impact journals publishing full papers (JMC) and letters (ACS MCL) have some of the lowest proportions of female corresponding authors from the journals studied; both journals are taking action to support systemic changes. ,, This may reflect the gender balance in higher ranking institutions, which tend to be poorer–as authors from these institutions are on balance more likely to publish in higher impact journals . A further underpinning reason is likely to be the “leaky pipeline” for female medicinal chemists. , …”

“…In contrast, previous studies have focused on gender balance in science, patents, and chemistry as a whole; the granularity for medicinal chemistry is not reported. The experiences of female chemists and gender balances in some of the subdisciplines in chemistry have been described including computational chemistry, medicinal chemistry, − organic chemistry, supramolecular chemistry, and process research . Excellent recommendations and calls to action have been made. , Additionally, preliminary bibliometric studies of chemistry articles focusing on gender by the Royal Society of Chemistry in the United Kingdom (UK) and by Cotton and Seiple have been reported, but we are unaware of detailed data for medicinal chemistry articles as presented here.…”

Writing Your Next Medicinal Chemistry Article: Journal Bibliometrics and Guiding Principles for Industrial Authors

“…As is the case with ACS Pharmacology & Translational Sciences , the main contributors should be identifiable from the author list and differentiated from authors included predominantly for political or managerial reasons. ,, Given the importance of diversity, the nationality and gender of the authors should also be recorded by the journal in a suitably secure form. This may be viewed as controversial, but there is now a substantial literature exploring these topics. − …”

50 Years European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry (EFMC) – The Ascent of Medicinal Chemistry in Europe

“…One third of the recipients of EFMC recognition schemes over the years 2018-2020 have been female, with two out of six awards, including the most prestigious Nauta Award to Prof. Christa Müller (Bonn University) and two out of six Prizes, respectively, while women were completely absent from the lists of awardees and prize winners until quite recently. [7] Similar changes are occurring across other learned societies and institutions, and efforts towards gender equity have been discussed in a number of publications, [71][72][73][74][75][76] Recently they have been the topic of an EFMC-YSN webinar on "Women in Medicinal Chemistry", followed by a round-table discussion. [77] Third, an increasing number of younger scientists are actively becoming involved in shaping the medicinal chemistry community.…”