Royal Society elects Melina Schuh as Fellow
Biochemist Melina Schuh, currently Managing Director at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Multidisciplinary Sciences, has been elected as a Fellow of the British Royal Society in recognition of her outstanding contributions to oocyte research.
In today’s society, couples often wait until later in life to have children. However, this delay is not without risks: Female fertility declines with age. The most common cause of this decline is errors during meiosis. In this process, the egg cell halves its set of chromosomes, which is prone to errors. “If the chromosome pairs are not separated correctly during meiosis, the mature egg may end up with too many or too few chromosomes,” Schuh explains. “If such an egg is fertilized, it can affect the course of the pregnancy and the child’s health, and lead to miscarriages or infertility.”
Melina Schuh and her team are investigating how errors occur when the set of chromosomes is halved. The researchers have shown that chromosomes are often not correctly bound to the cellular machinery that separates the chromosome pairs. They also discovered that the chromosomes in egg cells become unstable as women age. These factors, along with others identified by her team, contribute to the error-prone nature of meiosis and can result in mature egg cells containing an incorrect number of chromosomes. Schuh’s research findings could help women in their late 30s and early 40s fulfill their desire to have children in the future and also improve the success rates of in vitro fertilization.
The Royal Society elects the most distinguished scientists, engineers, and technology experts to its Fellowship. Schuh is one of over 90 researchers worldwide who will hold the title “FRS” (“Fellow of the Royal Society”) in 2026. “Our fellowship is strengthened not only by individual distinction, but by the diversity of perspectives and experiences its members bring”, said Royal Society President Sir Paul Nurse. “The new fellows underscore the truly international character of modern science. This aspect plays a crucial role in achieving breakthroughs that benefit us all.”
In addition to Melina Schuh, four other Max Planck directors were elected to the Royal Society this year: Ramin Golestanian of the MPI for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Gilles Laurent of the MPI for Brain Research, Ruth Ley of the MPI for Biology and Sami K. Solanki of the MPI for Solar System Research. (vl)
