Assistant professor of molecular genetics, University of Toronto, Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital. Age: 38
Anne-Claude Gingras liked science from a young age, but had never considered a career in research. Until she tried it one summer in college, that is. “The minute that I started doing experiments I realized that this is something that not only am I good at it, but I love it,” she says.
Having grown up on a small island near Quebec City, Gingras didn’t speak English, and, afraid to venture too far for grad school, she applied only to McGill University in Montreal. The language barrier was an obstacle at first, her graduate advisor Nahum Sonenberg agrees, but Gingras came highly recommended by a former student of his, so he agreed to take her on. “The amazing thing is,” Sonenberg says, “[by] the end of her PhD, she wrote better than ...
