Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard is a German developmental geneticist who was jointly awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Nüsslein-Volhard received her doctorate in genetics in 1973 and spent her postdoctoral research studying the developmental biology of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. In 1978, she met Eric Wieschaus, who became her research partner. Together they identified 20,000 genes in the chromosomes of fruit flies. By 1980, they were able to identify the 15 genes that instructed the cells to form a new fly. She is the only woman from Germany to have received a Nobel Prize in the sciences. In 2004, she founded the Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard (CNV) Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Research, to support women in science with children. The foundation gives young women scientists grants for household help and childcare.
Learn more at nobelprize.org.