Achieving excellence in a single aspect of life is difficult, doing so in two is phenomenal. Ben Barres was a phenomenon; the “godfather” who largely created the modern neurobiology specialism of glial research, and who was equally prominent for championing equality for minorities, particularly women, in the sciences.
Barres’s unique journey began as one of fraternal twin girls in postwar middle class suburban New Jersey. She was named Barbara and grew up a tomboy who took an early interest in science and decided in eighth grade that she would go to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
MIT was a nearly all male place in those days. Barres was given early acceptance and a scholarship, but not an easy road towards graduation in 1976. “I was the only person in a large class of nearly all men to solve a hard maths problem, only to be told by the professor that my boyfriend must have solved it for me,” Barres would later write.
Medical school at Dartmouth led to a residency in clinical neurology at Cornell, where the fascination with glia took hold. Barres felt the need for further study and turned to Harvard for a PhD in …

中文翻译：

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本·巴里斯（Ben Barres）：神经科学家和多元化的斗士

在生活的一个方面实现卓越是很困难的，而在两个方面都做到这一点是惊人的。本·巴里斯是一个现象。“教父”在很大程度上创造了神经胶质研究的现代神经生物学专业，并且在倡导科学中的少数群体，尤其是妇女平等方面同样出类拔萃。
巴雷斯的独特旅程始于战后中产阶级郊区新泽西州的异卵双胞胎女孩之一。她被命名为芭芭拉（Barbara），并且长大了一个对科学感兴趣的假小子，并在八年级时决定去麻省理工学院（Massachusetts Institute of Technology）读书。
那个时候，麻省理工学院几乎全是男性。巴雷斯获得了早期的录取并获得了奖学金，但在1976年毕业时却并非一帆风顺。“我是几乎所有男人中唯一一个解决数学难题的人，但教授告诉我，我的男朋友一定为我解决了这个问题。”
达特茅斯医学院（Dartmouth Medical School）导致了康奈尔大学（Cornell）临床神经病学的住院医师，在那里人们对神经胶质细胞的迷恋深深吸引了。巴雷斯认为有必要进一步研究，因此求助于哈佛大学……