Nusslein-Volhard, << NUS lyn FAWL hart, >> Christiane (1942-…), is a German biologist who made important discoveries about how genes control the early development of embryos. For her work, she shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with two American researchers, Edward B. Lewis and Eric F. Wieschaus. She was the first German woman to win a Nobel Prize in science.
Christiane Volhard was born in Magdeburg, Germany. She graduated from Eberhard Karls University in Tubingen, Germany, in 1968 with a degree in biochemistry. She earned a Ph.D. there in 1973. She also married and changed her name to Nusslein-Volhard. After completing her education, she held research fellowships at the Max Planck Institute for Virus Research in Tubingen; Biozentrum in Basel, Switzerland; and Albert Ludwigs University in Freiburg, Germany.
In 1978, Nusslein-Volhard began the research that would eventually win the Nobel Prize. That year, she joined Wieschaus as a group leader at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany. Building on work Lewis had done earlier on fruit fly genes, the two researchers determined which genes were important to normal development and which were essential. The Nobel committee said that the two researchers’ work on fruit flies has helped scientists understand the causes of birth defects in human beings.
In 1981, Nusslein-Volhard joined the staff of the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tubingen. She became director of the institute in 1985.
