The "European Molecular Biology Laboratory" Elite Institute in Heidelberg By Martin Spiewak

If you were to pass through the laboratories, you would observe the young faces deep in concentration. Studying the names of the scientists in any research group, you would notice that hardly any two of them come from the same country. A look at the technical equipment, too, would help you understand what makes this institute one of the top centres in the field of biosciences. From the electron microscope to the grey machines for decoding genetic information, all the technology here is state-of-the-art.

But when developmental biologist Jochen Wittbrodt wants to explain to visitors the secret behind the success of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), he likes to take them to the cafeteria. "This is the heart of the institute. This is where most of the scientific problems are solved," he says. He goes on to explain that four to five of his largest research projects were born here. You arrange to meet, "a short e-mail is all you need," he says, and a short while later you're sitting together with a cappuccino in front of you and the ideas are flowing to and fro.


All that's needed to advance scientific progress one small step further is a chance meeting in the queue at the till. That's where Wittbrodt explained to a colleague about the new possibility of observing animal embryos under the microscope in 3D. It would be even better, he pondered, if it were possible to do this with living organisms. "As we were paying, we solved the problem," Wittbrodt recalls. His colleague, the biophysicist Ernst Stelzer, had a blueprint for just such a piece of optical equipment in his drawer - it was just that no one had been interested in it before. The conversation led to a project, and the project to a patent and various scientific publications, including in Science.

Encounters like this are common at the EMBL. The place itself is conducive to it. Some 500 researchers from Europe and the rest of the world work on the most important bioscience questions in a labyrinthine building complex on a wooded hill above Heidelberg - a kind of scientific "magic mountain" that no one really needs to leave, except to sleep. The food is good, the technical equipment and support personnel excellent. And those who want to see a new face once in a while attend a lecture by one of the guest scientists who make the pilgrimage up here in their dozens every month. They come because the EMBL is one of the world's most reputable research institutes for molecular biology. Founded in the mid-seventies in order to break the Americans' dominance in this dynamic field, today it is right up there with the big names - Harvard, Stanford or the biocentre at Cold Spring Harbour. It is a shining example of what can be achieved in Europe when countries put their national vanity aside and bundle their strengths. No other European institute has more publications to its name in the field of life sciences.

The institute owes its success to certain distinctive characteristics. Everyone who comes to the EMBL knows from the start that they will have to leave again after a maximum of nine years. Only very few are given a position for life. The rest return to their home or another country, having gained a first-class research reputation and excellent contacts. "We are a service organisation," says Institute Director Iain Mattaj with typical British understatement. "We develop the stars of tomorrow for our member countries."

This unique institutional modesty has meant that, outside the field of biomedicine, only a few people know what the letters EMBL stand for. Hardly anyone knows that the only German winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, carried out the seminal genetic studies for which she was later internationally honoured here at Boxberg. Or that 25 Max Planck Institute directors began their scientific careers here.

Germany is not the only country to have benefited from the Heidelberg institute. Other countries to profit include Spain. The organisers of this year's ESOF conference had a disproportionately large number of employees working at the EMBL a few years ago. Now in senior positions in Barcelona, Madrid or Valencia, the former institute employees are currently active in the race to make up lost scientific ground that the country embarked on a few years ago.