2011 was the International Year of Chemistry and the Year of Women Scientists. Through its section ‘Women in Science’, the Spanish Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology celebrated it by acknowledging the role played by women in the development of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biomedicine. For twelve months, the Society published on its website twelve biographies and portraits of some of the female scientists who made outstanding contributions over the last hundred years.

As a result of that project, the Society now celebrates their 50th anniversary with an exhibition consisting of twelve more biographies of Nobel female laureates. These biochemists are: Ada Yonath (2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry), Barbara McClintock (1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine), Carol Greider (2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine), Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard (1995 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine), Dorothy Crowfoot-Hodgkin (1964 Nobel Prize in Chemistry), Elizabeth H. Blackburn (2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine), Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine), Gertrude Belle Elion (1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine), Gerty Theresa Cori (1947 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine), Linda Brown Buck (2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine), Rita Levi-Montalcini (1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine), and Rosalyn Sussman Yallow (1977 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine). All the texts have been written by working researchers, out of respect and affection, and they are intended not to sound as mere successions of dates and facts.

The exhibition was already on show at the Conference of the Spanish Society, from 3 to 6 September in Madrid.