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There is nearly equal number of male and female student enrollments in primary and secondary level of education in Bangladesh, but at the tertiary level and at the job sector, a sharp drop in the number of women is observed. This paper explores the current status of female students’ enrollment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) at the tertiary education system in Bangladesh. It is followed by explorations of challenges women face in technical workplace. Quantitative data for the paper come from more than 1.18 million students at tertiary level from eight public and private universities for three academic years from 2018 to 2020. In addition, a qualitative study was conducted with 48 participants in pre- and during COVID-19 eras to understand barriers hampering women in STEM-related education and jobs. The paper provides a guideline for future policies to ensure inclusive space for growth and retention for women in STEM. 

In the pilocarpine model of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) in rodents, systemic injections of pilocarpine induce continuous, prolonged limbic seizures, a condition termed “Status Epilepticus” (SE). With appropriate doses, many inbred strains of mice show behavioral seizures within an hour after pilocarpine is injected. With the behavioral scoring system based on a modification of the original Racine scale, one can monitor the seizures behaviorally, as they develop into more prolonged seizures and SE. SE is typically associated with damage to subsets of hippocampal neurons and other structural changes in the hippocampus and generally subsides on its own. However, more precise control of the duration of SE is commonly achieved by injecting a benzodiazepine into the mouse 1 to 3 h after the onset of SE to suppress the seizures. Several days following pilocarpine-induced SE, electrographic and behavioral seizures begin to occur spontaneously. The goal of this protocol is to reliably generate mice that develop spontaneous recurrent seizures (SRS) and show the typical neuropathological changes in the brain characteristic of severe human mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (mTLE), without high mortality. To reduce mortality, multiple subthreshold injections of pilocarpine are administered, which increases the percentage of mice developing SE without concomitant mortality. Precise control of the duration of SE (1 or 3 h) is achieved by suppressing SE with the benzodiazepine Midazolam (Versed). We have found that this protocol is an efficient means for generating mice that subsequently develop characteristics of human mTLE including high-frequency interictal spike and wave activity and SRS. In addition, we and others have shown that this protocol produces mice that show excitotoxic cell death of subsets of hippocampal GABAergic interneurons, particularly in the dentate gyrus and compensatory sprouting of excitatory projections from dentate granule cells (mossy fiber sprouting). Aspects of this protocol have been described in several of our previous publications.