The Prestigious Academia Europeae Has Elected Two Helmholtz Munich Researchers as Members
After a rigorous peer review process, the board of trustees of Academia Europeae, the pan-European academy of science, humanities and letters, has elected the Stem Cell expert Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla as well as the Epigenetics expert Robert Schneider as members. This is a recognition of their standing in the field of cell and developmental biology.
Founded in 1988, the Pan-European, non-governmental academy ‘Academia Europea’ fosters the European research excellence in the humanities, law, the economic, social, and political sciences, mathematics, medicine, and all branches of natural and technological sciences for the benefit and education of the public all around the globe. The academy advises and makes recommendations to national governments and international organizations concerning scientific matters to advance cross-topic and -country research in Europe.
Currently, the Academia Europeae has more than 4,500 members including 72 Nobel Prize winners. Its members are leading experts from across disciplines throughout the continent and European research pioneers working outside of Europe. The exclusive membership is upon invitation only after peer group nomination and election based on the research excellence and acknowledgement of the nominees in their research achievements and long-standing contributions beyond their field.
This year, the academy has invited two recognised researchers of Helmholtz Zentrum München into their circle. Following the appointment of Magdalena Götz (2006), Erica von Mutius (2016) and Matthias Tschöp (2016), Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla and Robert Schneider join now this prestigious scientific society. The membership is an honorable recognition of their scientific contributions in our understanding of life, primarily at the cellular and developmental biology.
About the people:
Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla is Director of the Institute of Epigenetics and Stem Cells and Director of Biomedicine at the Pioneer Campus at the Helmholtz Zentrum München. She studied Biology at the National University of Mexico and obtained her PhD at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France. She was a postdoctoral fellow at The Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, before starting her own lab at the IGBMC in Strasbourg, France. In 2016, she founded the Institute for Epigenetics and Stem Cells and was appointed as Professor at the Chair of Stem Cell Biology at the Faculty of Biology of the Ludwig Maximilian University Munich.
Robert Schneider is Director Institute of Functional Epigenetics at the Helmholtz Zentrum München. He obtained his PhD from the University of Munich before moving to the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, United Kingdom, to work in the lab of Tony Kouzarides. After his postdoc he established his independent research group at the Max Planck Institute for Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg, Germany. In 2012, he was recruited as “Directeur de Recherche” to the IGBMC in Strasbourg, France. In 2016, he founded the Institute of Functional Epigenetics and got appointed the professorship for Functional Epigenetics at the Faculty of Biology of the Ludwig Maximilian University Munich.