Petra Schwille
Petra Schwille is a biophysicist
and director of the research department "Cellular and Molecular Biophysics" at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry.
She is noted, in part, for her work on model membranes, and received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize in 2010.Education
Schwille graduated with a Diploma in physics from the University of Göttingen in 1993.
She worked toward her doctoral degree in physics at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany, and received her degree from Technical University of Braunschweig in 1996.Career
Schwille worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell University in 1997, and returned to the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen to a research group leader position in 1999.
She became a professor of biophysics at TU Dresden in 2002.
In 2012, Schwille became the director of the research department "Cellular and Molecular Biophysics" at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany, as well as an Honorary Professor in physics at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
Schwille developed the "two-photon cross-correlation spectroscopy" method with which fundamental cellular processes can be explored.
Schwille has been a member of the scientific Board of Trustees of the Heinrich Wieland Prize since 2011.Awards and honors