February 11 is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. This year鈥檚 theme, 鈥淪ynergizing AI, Social Science, STEM and Finance: Building Inclusive Futures for Women and Girls,鈥� highlights the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in shaping equitable scientific futures.
D2R is an interdisciplinary research initiative that values gender representation in science and is committed to advancing genomic鈥慴ased RNA therapeutics that improve health outcomes for people of all sexes and genders. We recently spoke with D2R鈥檚 Associate Scientific director, Professor Am茅lie Quesnel-Vall茅e, and D2R trainee, Alice Morgunova, who shared their perspectives on the significance of this awareness day.
How can the presence of women in D2R-related research make a difference in our society?
Prof. Quesnel-Vall茅e: Women鈥檚 presence in D2R research matters not simply because it is fair, but because it can change the questions we ask, the problems we prioritize, and the populations we center. When women are meaningfully represented across discovery, translation, and governance, research agendas are more likely to reflect lived realities across the life course, including caregiving, chronic conditions, and intersecting social vulnerabilities. In a field like RNA therapeutics, where innovation moves quickly from bench to bedside, women鈥檚 leadership helps ensure that scientific advances are not only cutting-edge, but also socially responsive and equitably distributed.
Alice Morgunova: Just as ignoring microRNAs leaves a dark matter gap in our understanding of disease, excluding women creates a parallel void in scientific inquiry. Lived experience sharpens hypothesis selection, particularly in complex disorders where symptom presentation, disease course, and treatment response differ by sex. Absence narrows the scope of questions and slows discovery. Inclusion, by contrast, directly reshapes experimental design, dataset composition, and translational relevance. In RNA research, women鈥檚 perspectives foreground how hormonal states and life stages influence molecular regulation and clinical expression. Diversity is a practical safeguard against biological and clinical tunnel vision.
How does incorporating sex- and gender-based perspectives improve RNA therapeutic research outcomes?
Prof. Quesnel-Vall茅e: Sex- and gender-based perspectives strengthen scientific rigor. Biological sex influences biological factors such as immune responses, pharmacokinetics, and adverse effects, while gender shapes exposure, diagnosis, access to care, and treatment adherence. Ignoring these dimensions risks producing therapies that work well for some populations and less well for others. Incorporating them early in RNA research improves reproducibility, safety, and effectiveness, and ultimately accelerates translation by reducing downstream failures and inequities in clinical impact.
Alice Morgunova: Biological sex influences RNA regulation in every cell, including X-chromosome inactivation, hormone-dependent effects, and differences in RNA binding, expression levels, splicing patterns, and regulatory networks. Ignoring these factors dilutes signal, impairs translation, and risks therapies that are effective for some but inert or harmful for others. Incorporating sex as a biological variable sharpens target selection, dosing strategies, and safety assessment, particularly for RNA modalities that depend on cellular context. Gender perspectives further inform cohort design and clinically meaningful endpoints. In my work, sex-stratified analyses reveal microRNA effects lost in pooled data. This is statistical power, mechanistic clarity, and ethical responsibility combined.
What are the main challenges you see in terms of representation of women in science, and what can be done to address them?
Prof. Quesnel-Vall茅e: The challenges are no longer only about entry into science, but about progression, recognition, and influence. Women remain underrepresented in senior leadership, in high-risk and high-reward funding, and in decision-making spaces that shape research trajectories. Structural barriers such as caregiving penalties, cumulative disadvantage, and uneven access to networks persist. Addressing these challenges requires moving beyond symbolic commitments to equity toward structural change: transparent evaluation criteria, sustained mentorship and sponsorship, equitable workload distribution, and accountability for inclusive leadership.
Are there areas in women鈥檚 health where RNA therapeutics could be truly transformative?
Alice Morgunova: Psychiatric and neuroendocrine disorders are especially compelling targets. Conditions such as depression and anxiety are more prevalent in women yet remain poorly served by diagnostics and treatments that rely on prolonged trial and error. RNA-based diagnostics could enable early risk stratification through blood-based microRNA signatures, identifying vulnerability before symptoms become severe or chronic. This opens a window for timely intervention. RNA therapeutics could then be applied as tailored solutions, using targeted silencing or activation to correct specific molecular imbalances. Together, these approaches can shift women鈥檚 mental health care from reactive symptom management toward precise, biology-driven prevention and treatment.
What do you hope will be different for young women entering science in the future?
Prof. Quesnel-Vall茅e: I hope that young women entering science will not have to choose between excellence and belonging. That they will see leadership that reflects their diversity, career paths that accommodate life transitions without feeling the need to explain or apologize, and research cultures that value collaboration, ethics, and societal impact alongside innovation. Most importantly, I hope they will inherit a scientific ecosystem where equity is not an add-on, but a foundational condition for doing better science and achieving better outcomes for society.
Alice Morgunova: I hope young women help define scientific norms rather than adapt to outdated ones. A woman entering RNA research should focus on the complexity of the transcriptome, not on navigating bias or exclusion. I want her to enter a system that provides structural confidence through transparent pathways, fair evaluation, and leadership pipelines across academia, diagnostics, and industry, so success does not depend on exceptional resilience. That system should also reward intellectual risk, funding bold ideas early rather than steering women toward conservative projects to earn legitimacy. In this environment, leadership becomes expected, and impact, not precedent, drives discovery.
