Only 38 women have received Nobel Prizes since they were first handed out in 1901.
The latest - Elizabeth H Blackburn and Carol W Greider - shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with Jack W Szostak for their work in solving the mystery of how chromosomes protect themselves from degrading when cells divide.
The first woman laureate was Marie Curie, who won Nobel Prizes in both physics and chemistry. Other women who have won Nobel Prizes include literature winners Toni Morrison and Doris Lessing and peace prize laureates Aung San Suu Kyi, a democracy activist in Myanmar, and Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi. No woman has ever won the economics prize since it was first given out in 1969. The 10 women who have won the medicine prize are:
Gerty Cori, 1947
Rosalyn Yalow, 1977
Barbara McClintock, 1983
Rita Levi-Montalcini, 1986
Gertrude B Elion, 1988
Christiane Nuesslein-Volhard, 1995
Linda B Buck, 2004
Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, 2008
Carol W Greider, 2009
Elizabeth H Blackburn, 2009