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Eight experts give their prescriptions for measures that will help to close the gender gap in national from China to Sweden

A workshop increased awareness of diversity issues, reduced gender bias, and increased readiness to take action on diversity issues from pretest (2 weeks before the intervention) to posttest (2 weeks after the intervention) among a sample of life science instructors., Mounting experimental evidence suggests that subtle gender biases favoring men contribute to the underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), including many subfields of the life sciences. However, there are relatively few evaluations of diversity interventions designed to reduce gender biases within the STEM community. Because gender biases distort the meritocratic evaluation and advancement of students, interventions targeting instructors’ biases are particularly needed. We evaluated one such intervention, a workshop called “Scientific Diversity” that was consistent with an established framework guiding the development of diversity interventions designed to reduce biases and was administered to a sample of life science instructors (N = 126) at several sessions of the National Academies Summer Institute for Undergraduate Education held nationwide. Evidence emerged indicating the efficacy of the “Scientific Diversity” workshop, such that participants were more aware of gender bias, expressed less gender bias, and were more willing to engage in actions to reduce gender bias 2 weeks after participating in the intervention compared with 2 weeks before the intervention. Implications for diversity interventions aimed at reducing gender bias and broadening the participation of women in the life sciences are discussed.

Efforts to understand the microbial contribution to chronic conditions such as obesity, irritable bowel disease, and colon cancer have led to increased study of the human gut microbiome. With current interest in manipulating microbiome composition to treat disease, Drosophila has emerged as a model system for studying the principles that govern host-microbe interactions. We recently reported that both Drosophila-associated and human-administered probiotic strains protect Drosophila from infection. Based on these findings, we sought to use the Drosophila system to understand the effect of interactions between probiotic strains and infectious microbes on host intestinal pathology. For this work, we used entomopathogenic Serratia marcescens and the Drosophila symbiont and human probiotic Lactobacillus plantarum. To observe if L. plantarum could lessen gut damage associated with S. marcescens infection, we imaged the ultrastructure of the Drosophila gut and changes in the localization of bacterial populations during S. marcescens infection in the presence and absence of L. plantarum. We also monitored the pH of the Drosophila intestine in response to colonization with L. plantarum, challenge with S. marcescens, or both conditions. This work provides a foundation for further study of the effects of probiotic consumption on human intestinal pathology.