Women in Natural Products Science

Planta Medica is pleased to announce a special issue dedicated to ʼWomen in Natural Products Scienceʼ.

Although much progress has been made to provide more opportunities, female scientists worldwide continue to experience many disadvantages and remain underrepresented in the field of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), especially in academic leadership positions.

Statistics have shown that there is a global disparity when it comes to visibility of women in science: women are under-represented with respect to first and last authorships [1]. For every article with a female first author, there are two articles first-authored by men, and the situation with respect to senior authorship is even worse. In the field of natural products, the situation is not different: Men still lead in the number of published articles.

Strikingly, recent statistics also show that the self-citation rate is higher for men than women [2], and that papers from female scientists get lesser citations than those of their male colleagues [3].

Planta Medica, as one of the leading journals in natural products research, is taking the initiative with the publication of this Special Issue ʼWomen in Natural Products Scienceʼ to acknowledge the scientific merits of female scientists in our field, and to offer a publication platform for women who are eager to publish their research in a leading natural products research journal.

This special issue of Planta Medica contains 21 high quality papers written by renowned female scientists from all over the world, addressing various topics of natural products research. It is a great pleasure to see that first and last authors of each paper are female scientists. This issue clearly confirms that there are many talented and highly qualified female scientists out there in our field!

The Nobel Prize awarded in 2015 to You You Tu for the discovery of artemisinin brought into the spotlight one of the numerous and important contributions made by women in natural products research. It is noteworthy to mention in that context that Professor Tu published some of her early work on artemisinin in Planta Medica [4]. Professor Tu clearly is a role model for all female natural products scientists!

Hopefully, this Planta Medica Special Issue will encourage more women all over the world to get engaged in natural products science. Our field will benefit from it!

Professor Dr. H. R. H. Princess Chulabhorn Mahidol, Ph.D. (Organic Chemistry), Ph.D. (Aquaculture), Ph.D. (Bio-Veterinary Science), Dr. h. c. mult.

• References

• 1 Larivière V, Ni C, Gingras Y, Cronin B, Sugimoto CR. Bibliometrics: global gender disparities in science. Nature 2013; 504: 211-213
• 2 Singh Chawla D. Self-citation rates higher for men. Nature 2016; 535: 212
• 3 Knobloch-Westerwick S, Glynn CJ, Huge M. The Matilda effect in Science communication: An experiment on gender bias in publication quality perceptions and collaboration interest. Sci Comm 2013; 35: 603-625
• 4 Tu YY, Ni MY, Zhong YR, Li LN, Cui SL, Zhang MQ, Wang XZ, Ji Z, Liang X. Studies on the constituents of Artemisia annua Part II′. Planta Med 1982; 44: 143-145