Throughout her scientific career, Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla has been interested in understanding the mechanisms that regulate cell fate and underlie cellular identity. Her research focus lies on the epigenetic mechanisms that regulate the transitions of cellular plasticity and epigenetic reprogramming after fertilization in mammals, with the long-term goal of understanding how totipotency is established, maintained and how it can be experimentally manipulated. 

Building Bridges

Maria-Elena studied Biology at the National University of Mexico. She joined the group of Mary C. Weiss at the Institute Pasteur in Paris for her PhD, where she focused on understanding how specific transcription factors regulate differentiation processes. Using a model of liver differentiation, she identified an embryonic isoform of the nuclear receptor HNF4alpha, which displayed specificity to regulate the embryonic hepatic program. She proposed that the use of different nuclear receptor isoforms enables a differential interaction with chromatin modifiers, thereby promoting different cellular programs.

With the goal of leveraging her expertise and to focus on cell fate regulation from a broader scale, she joined the laboratory of Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz at the Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge, for her Postdoc. Using the very early mouse embryo as model system, she generated novel insights into the epigenetic regulation of early mammalian development, demonstrating for the first time the central role of histone modifications and chromatin regulators in the cell fate decisions in the early embryo.

In 2008, she started her own group, which aims to identify the epigenetic principles underlying epigenetic reprogramming and cellular plasticity in mammals. Their work has led to key contributions for understanding the regulation of chromatin remodelling during early mouse development, and its functional impact for cell potency and reprogramming.

Over the past years, she has been fully committed to promote the next generation of scientific leaders. Following her motto ‘science has no borders’, she is dedicated to bring science closer to society and to promote ethical, legal and societal standards in science to achieve responsible research.

She is not only a group leader at the Institute of Epigenetics and Stem Cells (IES) at Helmholtz Munich, but also its Director, Head of the Stem Cell Center (rotating every year) at Helmholtz Munich, Director of Biomedicine at the Helmholtz Pioneer Campus, and Professor at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

In 2025 she was awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, Germany's highest scientific honor. The prize recognized her outstanding research in the field of stem cell biology and early development. Established in 1985, the Leibniz Program aims to improve the working conditions of outstanding researchers, expand their research opportunities, relieve them from administrative tasks, and support them in hiring particularly qualified young scientists. Each prize provides a maximum of 2.5 million euros.