Director of the Department of Cellular and Molecular Biophysics, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Martinsried, Germany
Member of the scientific Board of Trustees of the Heinrich Wieland Prize
Research
Schwille has developed fluorescence cross-correlation spectroscopy (FCCS), an elegant non-invasive optical method of recording molecular processes in the living cell with unparalleled precision. Schwille’s technique provides crucial quantitative information on the distribution and diffusion time of key factors, which is necessary to understand how cells self-organize, polarize, or develop into organisms. She has also achieved major breakthroughs in synthetic biology and devised easy to study in vitro models that mimic cellular processes, especially bacterial cell division and cell membrane processes.
Academic Career
Schwille studied physics and philosophy in Göttingen, Germany, and received her doctoral degree in Braunschweig, following a dissertation at the Max Planck Institute of Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen. She completed a postdoc at the Cornell University, NY, USA. Returning to Germany, she set up her own group at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry. In 2002, she was appointed Full Professor and Chair of Biophysics at the Dresden University of Technology. In 2011, she accepted her current position. She is married and has three children.
Selected Honours & Memberships
Lecturer award by the German Chemical Industry Fund (2001)
Philip Morris Research Prize (2004)
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation (2010),
Braunschweig Research Prize (2011),
Suffrage Science Award, MRC-CSC, London (2013),
Member of the National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech),
Member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities,
Member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
