Maria Leptin (Biology)
Maria Leptin |
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Maria Leptin was originally trained as an immunologist in Basel, Switzerland, and turned to study Drosophila development during her postdoc at the Medical Research Council - Laboratory for Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge, UK, which she continued with her research group at the Max Planck Institute in Tübingen, Germany. She has been a professor of genetics at the University of Cologne, Germany, since 1994. Her group now has two main areas of research; she has a continuing interest in the control of morphogenesis in Drosophila, but has also recently returned to her roots in immunology, and begun a project on the genetics of pathogen resistance, using the zebrafish as a model organism.
In addition to serving on advisory or governing boards of various institutes, as a journal co-editor, dean of graduate school, and other community functions, she is actively involved in supporting young female scientists as a member of the Christiane Nüsslein Volhard Stiftung (CNV). She has two teenage sons.