RWTH professor Gabriele Pradel is establishing Infect-Net with colleagues. An association is set to further strengthen their position in the future.
Although there are many female virologists, microbiologists, and infectious diseases researchers in leadership positions at German universities and research institutes, they are usually not in the public eye. The inaccurate perception of few women being science experts was particularly evident during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, where it was primarily male virologists positioning themselves as advisors to policymakers in the media.
Over the next three years, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research will provide funding for the establishment of a network of German female researchers of infectious diseases with its Innovative Women in Focus program. RWTH Professor Gabriele Pradel from the Department of Cellular and Applied Infection Biology at the Institute of Biology 2 is responsible for the Infect-Net project. The founding team includes her colleagues Petra Dersch (University of Münster), Melanie Brinkmann (Technische Universität Braunschweig), Sandra Ciesek (Universitätsklinikum Frankfurt), and Iris Bruchhaus (Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg). A total of 30 infectious diseases researchers have already joined Infect-Net.
Reference Link:https://www.rwth-aachen.
