Interview with Marzia Bedoni and Alice Gualerzi, researchers at the Don Gnocchi Foundation in Italy
By Amina Sofia El-Maghraby, Italian correspondent
This interview is dedicated to two women, two laboratory researchers who work together at the Don Carlo Gnocchi Foundation in Milan. Marzia Bedoni Researcher Coordinator Team leader of Nanomedicine and Clinical Biophotonics and Alice Gualerzi permanent researcher at LABION (Laboratory of Nanomedicine and Clinical Biophotonics).
The aim of this interview is not only to talk about their work, but above all to share their lives, their experiences in the field, and their points of view and advice with the hope of helping and empowering the younger generations of women to pursue a career in STEM.
Marzia graduated in Biological Sciences at the University of Milan, where she also obtained her Ph.D. in Morphological Sciences. She carried out her Post-Doc in FDG granted by the Cariplo Foundation and in 2011 she became a permanent researcher.
Marzia got married in 2012, she is the mother of two twin daughters of 6 years old, and this did not stop her from becoming a member of the Leadership Council of the International Consortium for Regenerative Rehabilitation (founded by the University of Pittsburgh, Stanford University, and Mayo Clinic), and Chair of the Clinical Translation and Social Impact Group in the European Technology Platform of Nanomedicine and Founding Member of Italian Society for Extracellular Vescicle (EVITA).
“During my studies and my career – admits Marzia – I have been quite lucky, and I did not encounter too many obstacles due to my gender. The working environment, in my first years, was predominantly female. At that time, I was working in a Department of the University of Milan with many female Professors from the Medicine Department and most of the colleagues were female researchers. When I have joined the Don Carlo Gnocchi Foundation the environment, was predominantly male, because my studies and my research were more related to physics and bio-engineering, areas that are historically characterized by a higher percentage of male researchers. Since 2018 Professor Maria Chiara Carrozza is the Foundation Scientific Director. So, despite some little difficulties during my career, I have encountered strong women who demonstrated that women can be leaders, even in the scientific field like Medicine and Bio engineering where men have historically dominated, especially in leading positions”.
Marzia makes some observations based on her personal experiences, especially regarding the gender gap and inequality between men and women, affirming the importance of cooperation between women, especially in the STEM world.
“First of all, women often feel that they have to fight for their position, to demonstrate their value, especially against the male counterpart, but they keep on fighting even when they are no more at risk.
Unfortunately, especially in an exclusively female working team, I had the perception that women might lose their ability to cooperate, which is one of our best qualities as we are more team-work prone but in STEM fields, where they face frequent fights and competition with their male colleagues, they sometimes forget the importance of their natural gift and tend to acquire the negative attitude to unfair competition of male colleagues, bringing it to an extreme.
Also, women often feel the need to continuously demonstrate their value and forget to ask for adequate recognition of merits. It seems like that women often feel themselves lacking skills and experience, even if they are not, and they are satisfied with too little, compared to men. We should help young women to feel more self-confident, do not be afraid to ask for equal treatment as men colleagues do”.
At the time of this interview the world was ready to celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, adopted by the United Nations and held on the 11th of February. “Science and gender equality are both vital for the achievement of the internationally agreed development goals, said Marzia, taking stock of the past, present, and future of the situation of women in STEM. “I think that this event should be more emphasized and promoted, not only at a scientific level, to encourage girls and young women to pursue a career in science. Only if we disseminate to everyone, using a common language, and showing that some of the best scientists in the world were and are female, we can reach the objective and close the gap. In the past, we had few women that won a Nobel Prize and that led a group, nowadays, despite some important exceptions in the world, women have full right to study, to pursue an academic career and many female figures stand out in the most diverse work environments. However, the stereotype that girls are less inclined to scientific and technological studies remains, because they are more naturally inclined to study humanistic subjects. Despite this cultural stereotype many women are famous today for their work and achievements in the numerous branches of STEM from astrophysics to technology, passing through medicine, like the Scientific Director of the Don Carlo Gnocchi Foundation foundation, Professor Maria Chiara Carrozza. I hope that in the future we will not talk about this and it will be normal to have a female Director or President and so on”.
Before becoming a permanent researcher at the Don Carlo Gnocchi Foundation, Alice had a long training path behind her. In fact, after obtaining a Bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences at the University of Milano-Bicocca, she received a Master’s degree in Biology applied to biomedical research and a Ph.D. in Morphological Science at the University of Milan. During the Ph.D., Alice spent some time at the University of California San Francisco, working on a project as Junior Researcher at the VA Medical Center. Right before starting to work at the Don Carlo Gnocchi Foundation Alice won a postdoctoral scholarship to work at Biomedical Tissues Srl in Parco Scientifico and Tecnologico Polaris, Cagliari Italy.
Alice explains how different the two experiences at UCSF and Polaris have been, “mainly because of my attitude towards research. My experience in San Francisco made me more self-confident, I learned the importance of personal initiative in research, something that I put immediately into practice in Cagliari. During both experiences, I did not feel differences in treatment between me and my male colleagues and I did not notice anyone suffering from gender inequalities among people of my age. Still, I have to say that both at UCSF and in Cagliari, the leading positions were held by men, who were in charge of the coordination of activities. At UCSF, Dr. Chia-Ling Tu, mom and researcher, was striving to obtain the results necessary to be granted new funds to continue her research. In Cagliari, as well, my supervisor was the chief of the startup I was working for, while achieving her second Ph.D., she was trying to keep on doing her job and have the titles to compete for a stable University position”.
But how are Alice and Marzia connected? Alice started working at the Don Carlo Gnocchi Foundation to carry out a project for Marzia, who was actually on maternity leave. Alice tells us a little bit more about how she lived this moment and how she managed to give voice to one of her projects, reaching her self-confidence and satisfaction.
“While working on it, I was tempted of starting something new, I wanted to apply the biophotonic methods that I was just learning on the study of a stem cell product, extracellular vesicles, that are under investigation for their application in regenerative medicine. I wanted to do something that I could feel mine, and I found in Marzia and in our previous chief Dr. Furio Gramatica two scientists that accepted to sustain me while allowing me to try and risk. They allowed me to test my hypothesis, after verifying that I had studied the literature and I had the basic grounds to start the project, they also provided me with some of the contacts necessary to start it. Their network has been essential for me to start, as well as their scientific support, it was the first time I was starting a project I had conceived, they provided me with the resources to do it and this has brought me and the laboratory to start over with a research topic that is still one of the main areas of research for our lab. Before that moment, I had always completed other people’s projects, I had very little space for personal initiative. The very first person who asked me what I wanted to do, to go on with the project and allowed me to use her money to try to do something, was Dr. Tu at UCSF, at that time I was not prepared to take the opportunity, the second time was with Furio and Marzia, and there I took the chance and I feel that it has been my first real professional success”.
Alice, apart from being a really good scientist and researcher, she is a mother. I asked her how did she managed to find a balance between her work and her family, with the various commitments and responsibilities that comes with it.
Alice honestly replied that she is not sure about the answer to give, as “sometimes I feel I still haven’t found it, sometimes I am surprised of my ability to make things work at home and still have energies to be enthusiastic about my job. Being a scientist requires great mental effort, you cannot consider it done when you go home. At the same time, I love the balance between the experimental and manual parts of the job and the intellectual one.”But like many other women, Alice shares the difficulties she had to face at work when she became a mother and she admits her concern.
“What is sometimes more difficult to accept is that being a mother does not allow me to go at the same speed as others do, especially male colleagues. When I was pregnant I had to stop most of my lab activities, long before the maternity leave, because of the chemical and biological risks I am exposed to. Then, I ran the risk of having my first maternity leave unpaid because of the unacceptable terms of the scholarships that are reserved to young researchers. This is something about our work that should be revolutionized.
When I was expecting my first child, I was 29, I had just started to work on the project about extracellular vesicles at the Don Gnocchi Foundation and I was afraid that I would have to slow down too much, that someone would release a similar research paper before I could. Besides, at the beginning, when you have a child you might prefer or need not to travel, but if you do so, you lose visibility and networking opportunities. A woman has to accept that if she becomes a mother she will have a temporary break, that other male colleagues will not have, and we are judged based on what we produce in terms of research papers. If you stop your project for a while, you might have a year gap in your publication records, like I have, and you might be not suitable for the submission of a proposal as Principal investigator”.
“I had to learn to accept my limits, accept to leave something behind and accept not to accomplish the entire to-do list in the expected time. I do not want you to lose hope, there are plenty of women in science who do simply great, I am myself a permanent researcher now, but what I want to stress is that as a scientist, as an Italian woman scientist, you have to be double passionate because of the difficulties related to motherhood, the balance between private and professional life and the inappropriate consideration and recognition of research, which is currently underpaid and with no adequate working contracts”.
Alice concludes by saying that even if the last year was tough, something good that can come out from the pandemic is the importance of research, accurately and rigorously conducted, even the one which is not immediately applicable and “I hope that this will change the consideration given to researchers, to scientists and women in science”.
