Pakistan-born Asifa Akhtar has been chosen as a recipient of the prestigious Leibniz Prize.
The German accolade Leibniz Prizes will be awarded on March 15 next year in a virtual ceremony as an acknowledgement of contribution and outstanding performance in scientific fields. The Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize rewards a maximum of €2.5 million per award to its winners.
Established in 1948, the Max Planck Society is one of the most successful Germany’s organisation as 18 researchers have emerged from the ranks of its scientist’s society and bagged the Nobel prize.
The 49-year-old scientist is the first international female vice president of the biology and medicine section at Germany’s prestigious Max Planck Society.
Germany’s Max Planck society shared the news on Twitter:
“Very excited that two @maxplanckpress
scientists are among the 2021 #LeibnizPreis recipients: our Vice President Asifa Akthar, MPI of Immunobiology & Epigenetics @AsifaAkhtar1
@mpi_ie
& Volker Springel, MPI for Astrophysics. Congratulations @dfg_public”
Very excited that two @maxplanckpress scientists are among the 2021 #LeibnizPreis recipients: our Vice President Asifa Akthar, MPI of Immunobiology & Epigenetics @AsifaAkhtar1 @mpi_ie & Volker Springel, MPI for Astrophysics. Congratulations!🥳😀https://t.co/DMlzwXASxf @dfg_public pic.twitter.com/6IPKy6gtqd
— Max Planck Society (@maxplanckpress) December 10, 2020
Born in Karachi, Pakistan, Akhtar has been very vocal regarding the importance of academia: “Academic science is a beautiful example of integration because you have people from all over the world exchanging knowledge beyond boundaries, cultures or prejudice,”
Enthusiastic to work on gender equality issues Asifa stated: “Gender equality needs to be worked on continuously. There are outstanding women in science and we should make all the efforts and use our resources to win them for the Max Planck Society.”
Akhtar obtained her doctorate at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London, UK, in 1997. She was a Postdoctoral fellow at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg and the Adolf-Butenandt-Institute in Munich from 1998 to 2001.
