New Delhi: Pakistan-born Dr Asifa Akhtar has been selected for prestigious 2021 Leibniz Prize by DFG (German Research Foundation). She was recongised for cell-biological work on the mechanisms of epigenetic gene regulation. She is set to take home 2.5 million Euros in prize money.
Akhtar was the the first international female vice president of the biology and medicine section at Germany’s prestigious Max Planck Society. She had received the ELSO (European Life Science Organization) award in 2008.
The Max Planck Society, which Dr Akhtar is associated with, is Germany’s most successful research organisation. Since its establishment in 1948, no fewer than 18 Nobel laureates have emerged from the ranks of its scientists, putting it on a par with the best and most prestigious research institutions worldwide.
Her success also drew appreciation from the German Consulate General in Karachi.
“Congratulations, Dr. Asifa! You make both Pakistan and Germany extremely proud with your outstanding contributions to science!” the congratulatory note read.
Dr. Asifa studied Bachelor in Biology from the University College London (UCL) in 1993. In 1998, she went on to pursue a Ph.D. from the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London.
After her Ph.D., she continued her studies in chromatin regulation as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Peter Becker at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, as well as in the Adolf Butenandt Institute in Munich, Germany.
Dr. Asifa Akhtar became the group leader at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in 2001. Later she moved her laboratory to the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg, Germany. She was appointed the director of the same laboratory in 2013. And heading the Chromatin Regulation department.
She was selected as an EMBO member in 2013. She was also elected as a German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina member in 2019.
Heartiest Congratulations! Keep it up Asifa.