Professor Dr. h.c. Matthias W Hentze MD, FAA, ML, MAE
Director, European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Heidelberg, Germany
Matthias Hentze is the Director of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and Co-Director of the Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit (MMPU). Following medical training in Germany and the UK, he co-discovered “iron-responsive elements” as the first mammalian regulatory elements in mature mRNAs during his postdoctoral research at NIH. After two decades of elucidating mechanisms of RNA regulation by RNA-binding proteins, the Hentze group recently uncovered hundreds of new RNA-binding proteins, including many metabolic enzymes. Their current work focuses on riboregulation in metabolism and cell biology.
Matthias is a co-founder of the MMPU, an interdisciplinary and translational research unit between EMBL and Heidelberg University. His work has been widely recognized, including Germany’s most prestigious Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the RNA Society. He is an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation, the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the Academia Europaea, the Australian Academy of Science, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Matthias serves on numerous scientific advisory and editorial boards, and in 2020 initiated the Environmental Research Initiative and Fund.
