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The lawsuits are not aimed at Blackburn, the plaintiffs tell ScienceInsider. Blackburn, the newly appointed Salk president and one of the most accomplished scientists in the world, has not been immune to … judgmental comments, with numerous senior male faculty making disparaging remarks about her abilities to function as Salk's president." Her predecessor, William Brody, headed the institute from 2008 to 2015. In an ironic twist, the current president is a woman: Nobel laureate Elizabeth Blackburn, who discovered the molecular nature of telomeres and who co-discovered telomerase, was hired in November 2015 and began work in January 2016. It raised about $125 million in 2016 to support research into topics including aging, cancer and immunology, diabetes, brain science, and plant biology, according to an institute fact sheet. Perched on a campus on the Pacific coast, the Salk is a storied hub of biology with a scientific staff of more than 600 and an impressive roster of Nobel laureates past and present. Plaintiff Katherine Jones is fourth from right. Plaintiff Vicki Lunblad is fifth from right. Part of a brochure used in a 2013 fundraising campaign by the Salk Institute. Jones alleges in her complaint that Salk leaders used female faculty members and scientists as "donor-bait" by picturing them on mailers sent to potential donors "in an effort to make it appear that Salk recognizes the importance of retaining and promoting and paying women equally" (see image, below). The institute also prevented female scientists from benefiting from the proceeds of a 2013 fundraising campaign that promoted, according to Jones's complaint, "the false idea that the Salk Institute strongly supports women in science." "Salk has allowed an "old boys club" culture to dominate, creating a hostile work environment for the Salk tenured women professors," Lundblad alleges in her complaint. Salk's administration, the plaintiffs allege, excluded them from funding, pressured them to downsize their labs, disparaged their work, and prevented them from being considered for lucrative grants. In their complaints, the plaintiffs allege long-standing, systematic sexism by the Salk Institute. (The others are cancer biologist Beverly Emerson and plant biologist Joanne Chory.) Salk has 28 fully tenured professors who are male, according to Lundblad's suit. Both are tenured professors and as such comprise two of the four women on the institute's scientific staff who hold such positions. Jones, 62, is an expert in transcription elongation, a process that controls the expression of HIV and cancer genes she has been at the Salk since 1986. Lundblad, 64, is a cell biologist who made her name in telomere biology and has been at the institute since 2003. In the pair of lawsuits, filed 11 July in California Superior Court in San Diego, plaintiffs Vicki Lundblad and Katherine Jones seek unspecified compensation for an array of harms.
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The independent institute, in San Diego, California, was founded by polio vaccine pioneer Jonas Salk 57 years ago. Two senior female scientists are suing their employer, the prestigious Salk Institute for Biological Studies, alleging pervasive, long-standing gender discrimination.