Rate My Professor Eric Wieschaus

Eric F. Wieschaus serves as Squibb Professor in Molecular Biology, Emeritus, and Professor of Molecular Biology and the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Emeritus, at Princeton University. He received a B.S. in Biology from the University of Notre Dame and a Ph.D. in Biology from Yale University. Wieschaus joined the Princeton faculty in 1981 as an assistant professor, advancing to associate professor in 1983 and full professor in 1987. His research focuses on the embryonic development of Drosophila melanogaster, with particular emphasis on the genetic and molecular mechanisms that pattern the early embryo. In the late 1970s, working with Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, he performed large-scale mutagenesis screens that identified most of the genes controlling embryonic patterning in the fruit fly. These foundational studies established conserved signaling pathways used across multicellular organisms. At Princeton, his laboratory has investigated zygotically active genes required for cellularization, gastrulation, and segment polarity, as well as biophysical processes governing cell shape changes and morphogen gradients. Wieschaus is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a foreign member of the Max Planck Society. He shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Nüsslein-Volhard for discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development. His work has influenced understanding of developmental processes relevant to human birth defects and cancer. Wieschaus continues active research as a Senior Scholar in Molecular Biology.