Magdalena Götz

Professor and Chair of Physiological Genomics Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany

Magdalena Götz is a German biologist and neuroscientist recognized as one of the world’s leading stem cell researchers. She is the Director of the Institute of Stem Cell Research at the Helmholtz Munich, Head of the Stem Cell Center Department, and Head of the Research Group Neural Stem Cells. Additionally, she is a Professor of Physiological Genomics at the LMU Biomedical Centre in Munich. Her research focuses on elucidating mechanisms of brain development and neurogenesis in both the developing and adult brain. She pioneered the discovery that glial cells in the brain function as stem cells and can be reprogrammed to generate new neurons, leading to a paradigm shift in neuroscience. Her findings are instrumental in developing new therapeutic approaches for treating brain injuries and diseases such as Alzheimer’s. She has been awarded numerous prizes, including the Gottfried-Wilhelm Leibniz Prize from the German Research Foundation. She is a member of EMBO, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, the Leopoldina, and the Academia Europaea. Furthermore, she has been awarded two ERC Advanced Grants from the European Research Council.