I want to tell young girls and women: You can do it. You’re just as capable as the boys, and if there’s something you want to accomplish, go for it !
Série Femmes, filles et sciences
Entretien avec Sabine Liebscher et Caroline Rouaux, médecin et biologiste, lauréates du Prix Forcheurs 2024
Le Service pour la science et la technologie de l’Ambassade de France en Allemagne met en lumière aux mois de février et mars 2025, des femmes scientifiques, en particulier des coopérations franco-allemandes scientifiques féminines.
A l’occasion de la Journée internationale des femmes et filles de science, le 11 février, deux chercheuses, Dr. Sabine Liebscher, de l’Institut für Klinische Neuroimmunologie, LMU Klinikum, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität et Dr. Caroline Rouaux, du Centre de recherche de Biomédecine de Strasbourg, Université de Strasbourg, Inserm, répondent à nos questions.
Sabine Liebscher et Caroline Rouaux consacrent leurs recherches aux mécanismes cellulaires et aux circuits qui régissent la maladie neurodégénérative mortelle qu’est la sclérose latérale amyotrophique (SLA), aussi connue sous le nom de maladie de Charcot. Leur collaboration a débuté en 2017, alors qu’elles venaient toutes deux de créer leur propre laboratoire indépendant. La clé de leur succès est leur expertise scientifique complémentaire : Caroline Rouaux est biologiste moléculaire, formée à la neurodégénérescence et au neurodéveloppement, et Sabine Liebscher est médecin, formée aux neurosciences avec une expertise dans les technologies d’imagerie in vivo pour étudier la neurodégénérescence.
Elles sont lauréates du prix Forcheurs Jean -Marie Lehn 2024, un prix scientifique qui récompense chaque année les collaborations prometteuses d’un binôme de jeunes chercheuses et chercheurs franco-allemands dans le domaine de la chimie, de la pharmacologie ou à l’interface entre la chimie et la santé. L’appel à candidature 2025 est ouvert jusqu’au 10 mars. Toutes les informations sont à retrouver ici : https://www.science-allemagne.fr/non-classe-nodisplay/lappel-a-candidatures-2025-pour-le-prix-forcheurs-est-lance/
Can you introduce yourself, your studies and your research?
Sabine Liebscher: I studied medicine and have always been deeply fascinated by the brain, especially from a pathological perspective. I’ve always had the naive ambition to make a difference, to contribute to the understanding of how these disorders develop in the first place and how we might find treatments to combat them. To pursue this, I conducted my medical thesis on alterations of serotonergic receptors in a neuropsychiatric mouse model. Afterwards, I decided to pursue a PhD and joined the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, where I completed my PhD in neuroscience. Following that, I was fortunate enough to receive a clinician-scientist grant, which allowed me to start my own research group and at the same time to begin my residency training in neurology at the University hospital in Munich and later an independent Emmy Noether group leader. Two years ago, I was appointed as a professor of cellular neurophysiology in Cologne, and as of 1st of February I am the director of the Institute of Neurobiochemistry in Innsbruck, in Austria. I feel that in terms of my career, I have been fortunate and very lucky to have come this far and a major reason for my success has been the excellent collaborator I have worked with.
Caroline Rouaux: I am currently a director of research at INSERM in France. Initially, I wanted to become a medical doctor, specifically a psychiatrist, because I was fascinated by understanding how people behave and interact with each other. However, I eventually found that medical studies didn’t fully satisfy me, while my interest in the brain remained strong, and gradually, I turned to neuroscience research. I began my PhD in Strasbourg, where I studied the mechanisms of neurodegeneration, using relatively simple cellular models. During that time, we made some interesting discoveries regarding epigenetics and how it contributes to the neurodegenerative processes. In need for a greater translational relevance of my work, I shifted my focus to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the disease I continue to study today. Still fascinated by the brain, and in particular the cerebral cortex hosts some of the neurons that degenerate during the course of ALS, I decided to pursue a postdoc in the lab of Paola Arlotta at Harvard University. This six year-experience abroad, together with my initial PhD training, provided me with a unique expertise in both neurodegeneration and neurodevelopment, with a specific focus on the brain. This dual expertise enabled me to propose an original research project that interrogates the contribution of the cerebral cortex to ALS. The project was extremely well-received, allowing me to secure a permanent position at INSERM in 2013, and to be awarded a prestigious ERC Starting Grant from the European Research Council, which greatly accelerated my research. I’m still pursuing this line of research today. Along the way, I’ve also started collaborating with people from different fields of expertise, such as electrophysiologists and imaging specialists like Sabine, who are doing incredible work.
How and why did you start collaborating together?
Caroline Rouaux: We started collaborating in 2018, after being introduced to each other by a mutual colleague. A relevant example of the benefits of our collaboration is in the first place the search for funding, because the project that eventually Sabine and I have been leading over the last years was initially submitted only to the French government with only a French consortium, and this didn’t go through. And it’s only when Sabine joined together with other German neurologists, that our broader project got funded both by the French and German governments. This type of collaborative finding is extremely helpful.
Sabine Liebscher: Yes, we realized that we were both working on the same disease, the same brain region and had very similar ideas, but came from different methodological backgrounds, which gave rise to a joyful, fruitful and long-lasting collaboration and friendship.
How do you experience the impact of gender in your daily life (past or present)? Did you face particular difficulties as women in science?
Sabine Liebscher: What is pretty striking is the drop in women with higher career levels. In medicine and biology, for example, there are typically more women at the university level. However, at the postdoc stage, the proportion of women starts to drop. And at the professor or director level, women are very underrepresented. One difficulty for women is networking. At least that was true for me for a long time, to some degree because of the kids. You simply don’t travel as much, so you also don’t mingle and network that much.
Caroline Rouaux: I believe that being a scientist requires a certain level of competitiveness, which tends to be more commonly perceived in our society as a masculine trait. If a woman exhibits slightly different behavior, such as being less shy or expressing themselves more openly, they are often labeled as “having a strong personality” or even “being tough”. However, this characterization is not accurate. It’s simply that when we engage in competition using the same tools, we no longer align with the traditional expectations of how women should behave. Another topic is that, as a woman, when you receive an award, you can’t help but wonder whether it’s because you’re truly being recognized as a good scientist or simply because there’s a need to meet gender quotas. This creates a lingering uncertainty that is hard to shake off.
Do you have any solutions to avoid this situation?
Sabine Liebscher: In the last couple of years, I’ve had the privilege of mentoring women, both in clinical settings and in biology, and I have found this experience deeply rewarding. I could relate to the women I mentored, and it made me reflect on how valuable such support would have been for me 10, 15, or even 20 years ago, as I had little guidance at the time. I also believe that increasing the number of women in high-ranking positions, such as directors, will help create role models who can inspire others. Additionally, male principal investigators (PIs) have become more understanding of the importance of childcare and contribute more to it than they did 30 years ago. They interact with women in a more inclusive manner, and this shift in attitude reflects broader policy changes. Overall, I see significant progress in how we treat one another, valuing and respecting each other, which benefits both men and women.
Caroline Rouaux: As for my own experience, I’ve never viewed my journey as needing to make space for myself in a male-dominated field. My motivation has always been driven by science. There are certainly challenging days, but there are also moments when you see your ideas coming to life, which is so rewarding. In those moments, the focus shifts away from one’s position and centers on the discoveries being made and how they might benefit others. My PhD supervisor was a woman, and I also completed my postdoc in the lab of another woman. While neither of them explicitly told me, « As a woman, you can do it, » they set excellent examples of how to navigate this field. Their guidance was very helpful. That being said, I also believe that working with both men and women creates a more balanced and effective team.
Does a French-German cooperation help reduce gendered related issues?
Sabine Liebscher: At the Institute of Clinical Neuroimmunology at the University hospital of Munich, where I spent the last 10 years, our director and his wife (also a professor), who happens to be French, have a big family. Their experience has been a big inspiration for me. They have a very different perspective on balancing family and career. So when I had my last two kids, I never felt awkward about telling anyone. I never felt treated any differently because of my personal decision.
Caroline Rouaux: I think that the French system of childcare is well developed and has been extremely helpful to me, especially when my kids were very little. And this is obviously beneficial not only for women in science, but for any professional woman in general, and thus for our overall society.
Is gender a subject in your research?
Caroline Rouaux: The disease we work on affects slightly more men than women. Like many other researchers, most of my research projects were initially built on a single sex, mostly for practical, statistical and economic reasons. But now we have now become aware that those differences are extremely important and need to be taken into consideration, not only for biological reasons, but also because we came to recognize that women health has overall been extremely underestimated in research. Gender equity in research has now become one crucial ethical requirements that we are happy to address. This requires to build larger cohorts in order to be able to meet the statistical requirements of a good research project. While this is clearly more demanding, it is an extremely relevant aspect of biomedical research.
Sabine Liebscher: Indeed, most of what we know, and this is true for many different biomedical research fields, is based on research done on male individuals only. So addressing disease effects in a sex-dependent manner is a huge topic at the moment.
What advice would you give to girls and young women that have an interest for science?
Sabine Liebscher: I want to tell young girls and women: « You can do it. » You’re just as capable as the boys, even if they might be more outgoing and confident in showing off their achievements. You’re just as smart, and if there’s something you want to accomplish, go for it. A practical piece of advice would be to build a network. You can do this at any stage of your career. Even as a PhD student, you can reach out to authors whose work you admire, just to say you appreciate what they’ve done and to exchange ideas. Not everyone will respond, but you’d be surprised at how often people are open to connecting, especially because they’ve likely faced similar challenges themselves. They’d be happy to hear from someone who values their work, even if you’re on the other side of the world. So, network, reach out, and talk to people. Find those you trust.
With regards to having a family yourself – it is absolutely possible to combine having a career and a family. The benefit of doing research in biomedicine is that you are actually often very flexible. Don’t be scared. Establish a support team and try improve planning and management. Men are just as involved nowadays (within the boundary conditions).
Caroline Rouaux: I always say that you should only pursue science if you’re genuinely curious about it, if you want to make a difference, and if it’s truly your passion. But ultimately, my advice would be to take things one day at a time—little steps. You can’t always plan ahead. Forget the idea of having a set life plan for the next 20 years that you’ll follow exactly as you envisioned. Things will unfold differently, but that’s actually a good thing. You don’t need to know where you’ll be in 30 years because, as you go through life, you’ll change as a person, too. So, enjoy what you do, follow your passion, and find something that fulfills you. Don’t apologize or feel pressured to make decisions based on what others expect of you.
Entretien réalisé en anglais le 29 janvier 2025 par Gael LE BUAN, Julie LE GALL, Noela MULLER,
du Service pour la Science et la Technologie de l’Ambassade de France en Allemagne.