Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard

• Born: October 20, 1942
• Place of Birth: Magdeburg, Germany

• GERMAN BIOLOGIST
• PRIMARY FIELD: Biology
• SPECIALTY: Genetics

Early Life

Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard was born on October 20, 1942, in Magdeburg, Germany, the second of five children born to Rolf Volhard and Brigitte Haas. Both of Nüsslein-Volhard’s parents were skilled musicians and painters, as were her siblings. Nüsslein-Volhard never had the same knack for visual arts that her brother and sisters had, though she was a proficient flutist. Her father also encouraged Nüsslein-Volhard’s academic development, discussing mathematics and science with his daughter in his spare time.

Nüsslein-Volhard learned the value of hard work early on, as her family did not have much money. She and her siblings made their own clothing and other possessions, and Christiane committed herself to scientific projects of her own design, based on books she had read. Much of Nüsslein-Volhard’s childhood was spent on her grandparents’ farm, where she was allowed to interact with and learn about animals. By the age of twelve, she knew she wanted to be a biologist. In high school, Nüsslein-Volhard performed well in subjects that she enjoyed and ignored those she did not, such as English. Her teachers recognized, however, that young Nüsslein-Volhard possessed a unique scientific mind and a propensity for critical thought. She had several strong female role models in her academic life, as many of her teachers, including her biology professor, were women.

Animal behavior and biology had always interested the young Nüsslein-Volhard, but for a long time she had considered studying medicine and becoming a doctor. Shortly before she graduated from high school, her father died suddenly, renewing her interest in medicine. After working as a nurse for a month, however, Nüsslein-Volhard lost interest in the medical profession and decided to devote herself fully to biological research.

After graduating from high school, Nüsslein-Volhard entered the Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe University in Frankfurt. Having studied biology for years on her own, Nüsslein-Volhard was bored with many of the discoveries discussed in her biology lectures, though she was occasionally interested in botany. She felt that she had already learned about all the exciting aspects of biology on her own and was subsequently drawn to physics. Then, a chemistry class she had taken reminded her of her love of biology. In 1964, Nüsslein-Volhard left Frankfurt to study chemistry at the University of Tübingen. Five years later, she graduated with a degree in biochemistry and a growing interest in genetics, moving on to doctoral work at Tübingen’s Max-Planck-Institut für Virusforschung (Max Planck Institute for Virus Research).

Life’s Work

By 1973, as Nüsslein-Volhard was finishing her doctoral thesis on DNA and RNA sequences, she became increasingly interested in embryology. Alfred Gierer, who was in charge of the Tübingen school, encouraged Nüsslein-Volhard to study developmental biology, then a fairly new discipline. Later that year, she met Walter Gehring, who had begun studying the development of the common fruit fly, or Drosophila melanogaster. Gehring invited Nüsslein-Volhard to conduct research at his laboratory in Basel, Switzerland, which she did for several years. In 1978, Nüsslein-Volhard became interested in the work of Eric Wieschaus, an American biologist who was studying the development of fly embryos.

Nüsslein-Volhard eventually moved to Heidelberg to work with Wieschaus at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory. The pair began researching the embryonic genetic development of fruit flies and of animals in general. Unlike many of their contemporaries, Nüsslein-Volhard and Wieschaus were interested in how genes were related, rather than how they were different.

Nüsslein-Volhard and Wieschaus wanted to figure out how animals grow from single cells into complex organisms, a process called embryogenesis. Expanding on the earlier work of Edward B. Lewis (with whom they would later share the Nobel Prize), Nüsslein-Volhard and Wieschaus isolated the genes that cause flies to grow from eggs into adults.

Nüsslein-Volhard and Wieschaus exposed the flies to chemicals that were known to cause genetic mutations. Though she did not know precisely what kinds of mutations would occur, Nüsslein-Volhard assumed that one of the genes affected would likely be the gene for which she was searching. When mutations occurred, the affected flies were mated with normal flies. Nüsslein-Volhard analyzed the offspring of these couplings so that she could see which genes were causing the mutations.

While the specific variables of the experiments were somewhat haphazard, Nüsslein-Volhard pioneered several important techniques for studying the fruit flies and eventually cemented D.melanogaster as the prototypical species for genetic experimentation.

Nüsslein-Volhard found that oil could be used to make the outer layer of an embryo, the chorion, transparent, allowing her to examine the embryo without removing the membrane. She also discovered that she could divide up eggs from a single fly and place them in test tubes, meaning that she could study the effects of many chemicals at once. Apart from the discoveries she would eventually make about the specific genes that affect development, Nüsslein-Volhard’s techniques completely redefined the methods used in genetics and biochemistry research.

After performing thousands of trials with D. melanogaster, Nüsslein-Volhard and Wieschaus eventually located about 140 genes (out of the fruit fly’s 20,000 total genes) that seemed to be essential to the process of embryogenesis. They gave the isolated genes names such as oskar, gurken, and hedgehog. Hedgehog ended up being a very important gene, responsible for limb development. Its analog in humans, called sonic hedgehog, is particularly important in the development of the spinal cord and the brain. Nüsslein-Volhard and Wieschaus published their initial findings in 1980, to relatively little fanfare outside the scientific community. Nüsslein-Volhard extrapolated her results with flies to determine that genetic mutation is often the cause of abnormalities and miscarriages in humans and other animals.

Genetics had been a taboo subject in Germany since World War II. Many Germans considered Nüsslein-Volhard an enemy of science because of her interest in genetic engineering. Eventually, however, Nüsslein-Volhard’s discoveries in genetics were hailed as a breakthrough. Her findings led to a better understanding of the behavior of genes and their role in human disorders, including cancer and, eventually, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, and Alzheimer’s diseases, all of which result in damage to and degradation of the brain. Following Nüsslein-Volhard’s studies, it was eventually discovered that humans share 44 percent of their genetic makeup with fruit flies, and that 61 percent of known human disorders are related to those shared genes. Far from merely explaining how animals grow, Nüsslein-Volhard helped to explain the basic behavior of genes in all animals.

Nüsslein-Volhard continued her work with fruit flies for many years, returning to Tübingen in 1985 to become the director of the prestigious Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology (originally the Max Planck Institute for Virus Research, where she had done her PhD work). In 1995, Nüsslein-Volhard shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Edward Lewis and Eric Wieschaus. Despite her long-standing fascination with flies and her prominence in that specialized field, Nüsslein-Volhard has since focused her work on zebra fish.

Impact

Nüsslein-Volhard has also worked to encourage equality for women scientists. Despite her Nobel win, she recognizes the disparity between women and men in the sciences. Indeed, she was only the eleventh woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize in the sciences. To help close this gap, Nüsslein-Volhard set up a foundation in Germany to provide support to scientists who are also mothers, claiming that the traditional roles assigned to mothers can often interfere with a scientist’s research projects.

Nüsslein-Volhard continues her studies of genetic development in her role as director of the Max Planck Institute. In 2005, she was awarded an honorary doctor of science degree from Oxford University.

The scientist served as Chancellor of the Order Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts from 2013 through 2021. In 2019, she was granted the Schiller Prize from the City of Marbach. In 2021, she was granted an honorary doctorate from the University of Pampeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain.

Bibliography

"Christine Nüsslein-Volhard, Nobel Prize-Winner in Physiology or Medicine, Will Be Invested Doctor Honoris Causa by UPF." UPF, 2021, www.upf.edu/en/web/biomedia-channel/noticies/-/asset‗publisher/tEdXnRt2y8I1/content/id/246299328/maximized. Accessed 15 Oct. 2024.

Dreifus, Claudia. “A Conversation with Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard: Solving a Mystery of Life, Then Tackling a Real-Life Problem.” New York Times, 4 July 2006: 2. Print.

Nüsslein-Volhard, Christiane. Coming to Life: How Genes Drive Development. San Diego: Kales, 2006. Print.

Wade, David. “Nobel Women.” Science 18 Jan. 2002: 439. Print.