Paris, January 10 {No.2000-02} - The L'OREAL-Helena Rubinstein Awards for the year 2000 were presented today at UNESCO Headquarters to five women scientists working in different continents by L'OREAL's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Lindsay Owen Jones, and by UNESCO Director-General Koichiro Matsuura.

The five laureates are biologists Joanne Chory (U.S.A.), Valerie Mizrahi (Italian, resident in South Africa), Tuneko Okazaki (Japan), Eugenia Maria Del Pino Veintimillia (Ecuador) and Margarita Salas (Spain). They were chosen by a Jury of fourteen renowned scientists from around the world, chaired by Professor Christian de Duve, 1974 Nobel Prize Laureate for Medicine.

Moreover, Thressa Campbell Stadtman, a biochemist of international renown from the U.S.A., received the L'OREAL Tribute to a Life Achievement for her major scientific work and exceptional career.

During the ceremony, ten UNESCO-L'OREAL Fellowships, worth US$10,000 each, were awarded to young women scientists (post-doctoral level) to assist them in pursuing their career in research. They are: Yézoumi Akogo (Togo), Maria del Pilar Jimenez Alzate (Columbia), Dorsaf Essebai (Tunisia), Rhoda Kariba (Kenya), Margarita Marques Martinez (Spain), Sonia Nasr (Lebanon), Marcia Roye (Jamaica), Tatyana Savchenko (Azerbaijan), Yufeng Wang (China), June Young Park (Republic of Korea).

Women are among the four groups considered as priority target groups by UNESCO. The Organization is committed to promoting a greater involvement of women in the sciences and to facilitating the access of women and girls to education. Deeply committed to research, the L'OREAL Group last September signed a partnership agreement with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Through the Programme for Women in Science, L'OREAL has pledged to bring to the fore women's fundamental role in research, notably in the life sciences.

Mr Owen-Jones highlighted the insufficient participation of women in scientific research and he welcomed today's opportunity "to distinguish five women researchers, from five continents, whose accomplishment deserves to be held up as an example. In this way, we hope to elicit new vocations. In attracting the attention of young [female] science students, or of women at the start of their career in the sciences, we invite them to consider research as a motivating and attractive adventure for themselves."

Mr Matsuura for his part said: "I welcome L'OREAL's commitment to partner UNESCO in an area where co-operation between the private sector and the organisations of the United Nations system is of growing importance. [...] In making these awards, UNESCO and L'OREAL are not only encouraging women to play a full role in research. We are partners in a growing movement that is mobilising men and women in favour of a different approach to development, an approach that translates into action our concern for social justice and human welfare, that shows concern for the protection of the natural heritage, that places science at the service of society, and that places women at the forefront of the scientific enterprise".