Portrait of Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard

Birthday profile

Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard

Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, German biologist and geneticist, Nobel Prize laureate

Born
October 20, 1942
Age in 2026
84
Zodiac sign
Libra
Birth year
1942

About Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard

Christiane (Janni) Nüsslein-Volhard (German pronunciation: [kʁɪsˈti̯anə ˈnʏslaɪ̯n ˈfɔlˌhaʁt]; born 20 October 1942) is a German developmental biologist and a 1995 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate. She is the only woman from Germany to have received a Nobel Prize in the sciences. Nüsslein-Volhard earned her PhD in 1974 from the University of Tübingen, where she studied protein-DNA interaction. She won the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1991 and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1995, together with Eric Wieschaus and Edward B. Lewis, for their research on the genetic control of embryonic development. == Early life and education == Nüsslein-Volhard was born in Magdeburg on 20 October 1942, the second of five children to Rolf Volhard, an architect, and Brigitte Haas Volhard, a nursery school teacher. She has four siblings: three sisters and one brother. She grew up and went to school in south Frankfurt, where she was exposed to art and music and thus was "trained in looking at things and recognizing things". Her great-grandfather was the chemist Jacob Volhard, and her grandfather was the known internist Franz Volhard. She is also the aunt of the Nobel laureate in chemistry Benjamin List. After the Abitur in 1962, she briefly considered pursuing medicine, but dropped the idea after doing a month-long nursing course in a hospital.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Career and life highlights

Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard timeline

  1. In 1975, Nüsslein-Volhard became a postdoctoral researcher in Walter Gehring´s laboratory at the Biozentrum, University of Basel.
  2. In 1978, she set up her own lab in the newly founded European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg with Eric Wieschaus, whom she had met in Basel.
  3. She won the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1991 and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1995, together with Eric Wieschaus and Edward B.

The world when Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard was born

Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard was born in 1942. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1942

  • #1 song"White Christmas" – Bing Crosby
  • Top movieCasablanca
  • Best-selling bookThe Song of Bernadette – Franz Werfel

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentFirst Negro League World Series
  • Top headlineBattle of Midway becomes turning point of WWII in the Pacific
  • Technology milestoneEnrico Fermi achieves first nuclear chain reaction
  • Defining fadRationing and war bonds
  • Notable inventionNapalm
  • World population2.35 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderFranklin D. Roosevelt
  • Sports championSt. Louis Cardinals (World Series)
  • U.S. population134.9M

1942 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19422026
Gas$0.20$3.45/gal
Average home$5,600$435,000
Average income$3,800$67,500
Minimum wage$0.30$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.27$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population134.9M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.