Simone Badal-McCreath

Simone Ann Marie Badal McCreath is a cancer researcher and a medical sciences lecturer known for the creation of the first ever prostate and breast cancer cells lines that were derived from Black people.

Life and career The daughter of a shop keeper, Badal McCreath's mother left the family when she was young; and, she had a step-mother and they did not get along. Badal McCreath's science education was hindered by a lack of teachers at her local school, and it was only when she reached University that she decided to become a researcher. Badal McCreath grew up in a poor community where no one in her family had ever attended college.

While attending The University of the West Indies, Badal McCreath decided not to practice medicine but to build a career in research.

Awards On February 15, 2014, Badal McCreath, along with four other women chemists from across the world, was awarded the Elsevier Foundation Awards for Early Career Women Scientists in the Developing World. The winning researchers represented five regions of the developing world from Indonesia, Jamaica, Nigeria, Uzbekistan and Yemen.