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Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla Portrait
Helmholtz Munich | ©Petra Nehmeyer

Prof. Dr. Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla

Director of the Stem Cell Center; Director of the Institute of Epigenetics and Stem Cells; Director of Biomedicine at the Helmholtz Pioneer Campus; Professor for Stem Cell Biology, Faculty of Biology of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (LMU)
Email meBuilding/Room: Building 90 / Room 107

"It is amazing that a single cell, the zygote, can form a whole organism. Discovering how the DNA and the chromatin organization enable that has been my driver over the years.”

"It is amazing that a single cell, the zygote, can form a whole organism. Discovering how the DNA and the chromatin organization enable that has been my driver over the years.”

Professional Career

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.

Honours & Memberships

2025

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Award, German Research Foundation (DFG), Germany

2023

Elected Member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Germany

2023

Elected Member of the Latin American Academy of Sciences (ACAL)

2021

Elected Member of Academia Europeae

2019

Honorary Professor, University of Aarhus Denmark

2019

Work Package Leader and Founder Member of the LifeTime European Initiative

2018

Female Award of the German Stem Cell Network (GSCN), Max Delbrük Center (MDC), berlin

2015

Elected Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO)

2015

Selected as Extraordinary Young Scientist by the World Economic Forum

2014

Prize from the Fondation Schlumberger pour l’Education et la Recherche, Paris, France

2014

Prix du Cercle Gutengerg, Fondation Université de Strasbourg, France

2011

EMBO Young Investigator

2011

European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant

2011

EpiGeneSys Network of Excellence FP7 (elected RISE1 member)

Recent Publications

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