Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, along with two American molecular biologists made important discoveries about how genes control the early development of embryos.

Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard was born in Magdeburg, Germany, the daughter of Rolf Volhard, an architect, and Brigitte (Hass) Volhard, a musician and painter. While few women of her generation chose scientific careers, Nüsslein-Volhard found that being female in a male-dominated field presented little in the way of an obstacle to her studies. She received degrees in biology, physics, and chemistry from Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in 1964 and a diploma in biochemistry from Eberhard--Karls University in 1968. In 1973, she earned a Ph.D. in biology and genetics from the University of Tübingen. Nüsslein-Volhard was married for a short time and decided to keep her husband's last name, as it was associated with her developing scientific career.

In the late 1970s, N...