Research

Hans Schöler is director at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Münster, heading the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, and holds a full Professorship at Medical Faculty of the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster. His research focuses on the molecular biology of cells of the germline (pluripotent cells and germ cells).

A major scientific achievement of Schöler was the groundbreaking differentiation of germ cells from mouse embryonic stem cells. Another main question addressed in his research is how various somatic cells and germline cells can be reprogrammed into pluripotent cells. As a respected pioneer of stem cell research, Schöler is a scientific counselor of the German Parliament and a member in the "Zentrale Ethik-Kommission für Stammzellenforschung (ZES)" (central ethics committee for stem cell research) in Berlin, and head of the managing board of the Stem Cell Network North Rhine-Westphalia. In November 2008, Schöler was awarded – together with Irving Weissman and Shinya Yamanaka – the Robert Koch prize for his groundbreaking research in the field of stem cell biology.