In her first week as President of the European Research Council, in 2021, Maria Leptin gave the keynote address at Berlin Science Week, where she stressed her commitment to “long-term curiosity-driven research” and her belief that this approach is necessary in order for science to have its maximum impact for the benefit of society.
An internationally-renowned developmental biologist and immunologist who has made major contributions to the practice of European science, and to its leadership, Maria’s career has taken her from Germany to Switzerland, the UK, the US and France. In 2010, she became the first woman to lead the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), one of the most prestigious science organisations in Europe.
Maria studied mathematics and biology at the Universities of Bonn and Heidelberg, initially planning to become a teacher. She changed her mind, she says, because of the sudden realisation that she “couldn’t stand the idea of going to school for another forty years.”
For her PhD, awarded in 1983 from Heidelberg University, Maria studied B-cell activation and maturation into plasma cells as part of the immune response to infections. The following year she joined Michael Wilcox's group at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge as a postdoctoral fellow.
Here, Maria became interested in developmental biology, studying the role of position-specific transmembrane proteins, integrins, in the embryonic development of Drosophila. In 1988, Maria was appointed a staff scientist at LMB, pursuing a growing interest in cell shape, early cell movement and gastrulation, one of the first stages of embryonic development.
She developed this latter interest in more depth while working as a guest scientist with Patrick O'Farrell's group at the University of California, San Francisco, in 1989, and it became the focus of her research group at her next role at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Germany.
Maria moved from Tübingen in 1994 to take up a chair at the University of Cologne Institute of Genetics, a position she still holds. Here, her group’s work has moved its focus from gastrulation to the development of the Drosophila respiratory system and the use of zebrafish as model organisms to study the innate immune response.
Maria’s European science journey has included visiting chairs, the first at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris in 2001, and then at the UK’s Wellcome Sanger Institute, 2004-2005.
Maria was appointed the first female Director of EMBO in 2009, and took up the role the following year, when she also set up a research group at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg. Here, continuing with Drosophila and zebrafish models, she studied the factors determining cell shape and carried out in vivo imaging of the innate immune response.
While at EMBO, in 2018, Maria was appointed a Visiting Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at the University of Oxford. Her prestigious academic appointments have run alongside numerous other roles, including as President of the German Society for Developmental Biology from 1996 to 1997, a member of the Advisory Board of the German Genetics Society from 2008 to 2012 and the President of the Initiative for Science in Europe from 2012 to 2017. In the UK, she was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Babraham Institute between 2006 and 2009 and, from 2014 to 2017, a member of the Wellcome Trust’s Science Interview Panel.
Publishing prolifically herself, she has also served on the editorial board of Developmental Biology from 1996 to 2001, of Developmental Cell since 2001, and was a co-editor of Mechanisms of Development and Gene Expression Patterns between 2002 and 2009. Together with Ron Vale, she was co-founder of the journal-agnostic reviewing platform Review Commons.
Maria currently sits on numerous private and public sector scientific advisory boards, internationally, and on the University Council of the University of Cologne. Her role as a director of the Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard Foundation exemplifies her long-standing commitment to promoting women in science, and her gratitude for support she received early in her career.
The Foundation awards grants for household help and additional childcare support to female PhD students and postdocs working in experimental science and medicine, helping these women to gain the freedom and mobility that is necessary for a scientific career. Maria has described the challenges of balancing her early career with bringing up her two sons, and her role at the Foundation came about in part as its founder had helped her when she was temporarily “more or less a single mother,” her husband still working in the UK after their children were born.
Inspired by the help she had received, Maria and a colleague went on to set up a kindergarten in Tübingen. Speaking about the Foundation, Maria says that its role goes beyond financial support, as it helps to reinforce the vital roles that women scientists can play.
Maria’s extensive experience of and familiarity with European science institutions, alongside her background in molecular biology and immunology, science administration and advocacy, made her ideally placed to take the helm of the European Research Council, as its president.
One of the main science and technology funding bodies in Europe, the Council is set to receive more than €16 billion as part of the 2021 – 2027 Horizon Europe programme, and Maria’s arrival, in November 2021, came at a particularly important time. Just a year later, her leadership in European science, which builds on her research contributions, was recognised when she was selected as a Foreign Member of the Royal Society. She is also an international member of the US National Academy of Sciences.
The Academy of Medical Sciences was privileged to welcome Maria as an Honorary Fellow in 2017.