The Genome Writers Guild and Rosalind Franklin Society announce the Rosalind Franklin Medal winners

The Genome Writers Guild (GWG) and Rosalind Franklin Society have joined forces again to recognize amazing scientists by awarding the Rosalind Franklin Medal. This award marries together GWG’s core objectives of facilitating genome writing conversation, collaboration, and exposure with the Rosalind Franklin Society’s goals of enabling more women to achieve higher recognition, visibility, appointments and success in industry, academia, or government. The recipient of this award embodies the missions of both organizations.

Congratulations to the Rosalind Franklin Medal 2022 Awardee, Dr. Leslie Mitchell:

A co-founder of Neochromosome, Inc., a biotechnology company enabling biological engineering at genome-scale. Prior to Neo, Leslie was a post-doc at New York University Langone Health and worked extensively on chromosome and genome engineering in both yeast and mammalian systems and helped lead the international Synthetic Yeast Genome Project, Sc2.0, aiming to build a designer yeast genome from scratch. Leslie completed her PhD in systems biology at the University of Ottawa in Canada.

Congratulations to the Rosalind Franklin Medal 2022 Runner-Up: Dr. Betül Kaçar:

An assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Department of Bacteriology. She received her Ph.D. in Biomolecular Chemistry from Emory University, and completed her postdoctoral studies at NASA Astrobiology Institute and Harvard University on Origins of Life and Evolutionary Biology. Her research group investigates the coevolution of cellular life and environment in lifeforms extinct and extant, using experimental systems. Dr. Kaçar received the Stanley Miller Early Career Award and the NASA Early Career Award. In 2022, she was selected to direct a new NASA-funded multimillion-dollar astrobiology research center focusing on life’s early evolution with emphasis on the natural selection elements over geologic time and to co-lead NASA’s new research coordination network on early cellular life. She has partnered with the UN Women Generation Equality Campaign to support education of girls and women globally. Asteroid 284919 Kaçar, discovered by astronomers using the NASA WISE space telescope, was named in her honor.