Prof. Dr. Magdalena Götz is awarded the Ernst Schering Prize 2014 for her groundbreaking research on the molecular underpinnings of brain development.

Her research interest focuses on the study of brain cell types, in particular on stem cell functions and cell regeneration. In her research project, Götz aims to investigate the molecular mechanisms of neuron development (neurogenesis). Here, a key role is played by so-called transcription factors that activate genetic information. Based on her insight that the support cells of the brain (glial cells) also have stem cell characteristics, Götz aims to induce their reprogramming to functional nerve cells. Magdalena Götz’s research is seen as a landmark in attempts to direct the differentiation of stem cells and thus to solve one of the central problems of applied stem cell research.

Magdalena Götz (b. 1962) studied philosophy at the University of Heidelberg and biology at the University of Tübingen. In 1992, she earned her doctorate in the research group of Jürgen Bolz at the Friedrich Miescher Laboratory of the Max Planck Society and was awarded the Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society for her dissertation. From 1993 until 1996, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute for Medical Research, London, and a postdoctoral scientist at Smith Kline Beecham, Harlow, UK. Subsequently, she led a research group at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Munich-Martinsried, Germany. In 2004 she was appointed director of the Institute of Stem Cell Research of the GSF (today: Helmholtz Zentrum München) in Neuherberg and chair of Physiological Genomics at the University of Munich (LMU). Götz is an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization and a recipient of the 2007 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize and the 2007 Hansen Prize. Since 2007, she has also been a member of the Leopoldina Academy. In 2008 she received the Hans and Ilse Breuer Award; in 2010, she received the Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon, and in 2013 the Remedios Caro Almela Prize on Developmental Neurobiology.