The bacterium Spirochaeta zuelzerae is named after microbiologist Margaret Zuelzer (on the photo). / Source: Wikimedia
The bacterium Spirochaeta zuelzerae is named after microbiologist Margaret Zuelzer (on the photo). Source: Wikimedia Mètode magazine publishes a report on the research developed at the Universitat de València on the scientific names dedicated to female researchers. Cytophaga johnsonae. This is the name of the bacterium named after Delia E. Johnson, American microbiologist and the first woman in the history of microbiology to name an organism, one hundred and twenty-five years after a man did so. In biology, one way to recognise the most prominent figures of its field is to honour them with an eponymous, this is, a term that comes from the name of a person. There are many examples, also in fields such as medicine or chemistry: the chemical element curium, named after Pierre and Marie Curie; Alzheimer's disease, after the doctor who identified it; neperian logarithms, after John Neper; or the aforementioned Cytophaga johnsonae . But, which of these eponymous in science are dedicated to women? Recent research into the scientific names of bacteria and archaea has highlighted the remarkable gender gap that still exists in the nomenclature of prokaryotes in microbiology.
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