Nüsslein-Volhard, Christiane (1942—)

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Nüsslein-Volhard, Christiane (1942—)

Nobel Prize-winning German biologist and genetic researcher. Pronunciation: noos-line. Name variations: Nusslein-Volhard; Nuesslein-Volhard. Born Christiane Volhard on October 20, 1942, in Magdeburg, Germany; daughter of Rolf Volhard (an architect) and Brigitte (Haas) Volhard (a musician and painter); received degrees in biology, physics, and chemistry, Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-University, 1964; received diploma in biochemistry, Eberhard-Karls University, 1968; University of Tübingen, Ph.D., 1973; postdoctoral work at Biozentrum Basel, Basel, Switzerland, 1975–76, and University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany, 1977; married a man named Nüsslein (divorced).

Received the Albert Lasker Medical Research Award (1991); awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology (1995).

In 1995, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard became the tenth woman to win the Nobel Prize for Medicine as well as the first German woman to win a Nobel Prize for science. She earned the award for her genetic research on the fruit fly, and her contributions to the field of genetics may help to explain why certain birth defects occur.

Nüsslein-Volhard was born on October 20, 1942, in Magdeburg, Germany, the second of five children of Rolf Volhard, an architect, and Brigitte Volhard , a painter and musician. The family considered accomplishments in art and music to be far more important than academic achievement, but Nüsslein-Volhard's passion for the sciences remained consistent throughout her childhood, and her parents eventually accepted the fact that she would not become an artist of some sort. She did, however, learn how to play the flute and sing.

Nüsslein-Volhard received degrees in physics, biology, and chemistry from Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-University in 1964, and earned a diploma in biochemistry from Eberhard-Karls University in 1968. She continued her education at the University of Tübingen, where she earned a Ph.D. in biology and genetics in 1973. She also did postdoctoral work in Basel, Switzerland, and in Freiburg, Germany. Married for a short time to a man named Nüsslein, she retained his name in combination with her own after they divorced.

In 1978, after completing her postdoctoral work, Nüsslein-Volhard became affiliated with the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), where she teamed up with Eric Wieschaus, another developmental biologist. Both scientists were intrigued with the process by which a single cell egg, which naturally divides into trillions of cells, eventually differentiates into specialized complex cells. In other words, they wanted to learn how cells "knew" to become, for example, lung tissue, vertebrae, or skin. To accomplish this task, they used Drosophila, the common fruit fly, which is often used in genetic research labs because of its incredibly rapid life cycle and embryonic development. Male fruit flies were fed a substance that damaged their DNA. The males would mate with females, which, in turn, produced embryos that were either dead or mutated. Nüsslein-Volhard and Wieschaus bred approximately 40,000 fruit fly families, each with some type of defect, and studied each embryo with a specially equipped microscope that allowed both scientists to view and study the embryo specimen at the same time. They found that the majority of mutations had only a minor effect on development but other mutations caused extraordinarily strange defects. After some time, they were able to identify the specific genes that determined organ arrangement and body shape. By studying what went askew, the pair found that of the fruit fly's some 20,000 genes, only 139 were essential for early development. In 1980, their research was published in the British scientific journal Nature. In the years that followed, Nüsslein-Volhard and Wieschaus published several other papers regarding their genetic research. Another of their important discoveries was that the mother's genes pass on genetic codes (morphogens) that essentially tell other genes what to do.

Much of their research was based upon work conducted in the 1940s by Edward Lewis, a pioneer in the field of genetics. Nüsslein-Volhard's research took Lewis' work several steps further by demonstrating that only a limited number of genes actually control development in fruit flies and that other, higher, organisms have similar genes that perform similar functions. This research made it possible for scientists to construct genetic "blueprints" for all life forms. Scientists have since been able to isolate genes that cause specific birth defects and some miscarriages. Her research has also been utilized in the field of in-vitro fertilization.

In 1985, Nüsslein-Volhard returned to Tübingen to serve as director of the Max-Planck-Institut for Developmental Biology. In 1991, she and Wieschaus received the prestigious Albert Lasker Medical Research Award. She spent more time studying fruit flies, but later switched her research interests to the zebra fish, which she has kept since the mid-1990s in a huge ultramodern fish tank (Fischhaus) in Tübingen. A more complex organism than the fruit fly, the zebra fish contains a notochord, or rudimentary spinal cord, thus classifying it as a vertebrate. In addition, zebra fish embryos develop outside the mother's body and are conveniently transparent, which makes observation of organ growth easy. Some of her colleagues were skeptical and critical of her new line of research but amidst all the negative attention surrounding zebra fish genetics, Nüsslein-Volhard, Eric Wieschaus, and Edward B. Lewis were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1995. The following year she worked at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital and published a 481-page guide to the zebra fish's genetic structure. Nüsslein-Volhard is known for her eye for detail and sense of humor; one of the genes that causes an enlarged heart in zebra fish was named the santa gene.

Genetic research has been a controversial subject, made all the more so with the cloning of Dolly the sheep and the success of the Human Genome Project; some people believe that geneticists will one day have the ability to produce super-humans. But Nüsslein-Volhard has dismissed those concerns. When she accepted her Nobel Prize she said, "No one has in their grasp the genes that make humans wiser, more beautiful, or that make blue eyes." She also noted that the research has helped people "become wiser, understand biology better, and understand how life functions." Still, as one member of the 1995 Nobel committee observed of the prize-winning research conducted by Nüsslein-Volhard and her colleagues, "They let the genie out of the bottle."