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Royal Society honour for Eileen Furlong
EMBL’s Head of Genome Biology announced as Fellow of the Royal Society for her exceptional contributions to science
Eileen Furlong was elected as Fellow of the Royal Society. She is one of over 60 outstanding scientists who join the independent scientific academy of the UK as Fellows and Foreign Members.
Furlong receives the honour for her exceptional contributions to science. Her research in the area of developmental regulatory programmes addresses general principles of how our genome is regulated. In particular, she investigates how developmental enhancers function, which has important implications for embryonic development, evolution and disease. She is noted for pioneering the use of genomic approaches to understand how multicellular embryos develop.
“I’m truly honoured to receive this prestigious recognition for my group’s research over the years,” said Furlong. “I’m humbled to join the Royal Society alongside so many excellent scientists whose work I really admire.”
Following a PhD at University College Dublin, Ireland, Dr Furlong carried out postdoctoral research at Stanford University, California. She joined EMBL as Group Leader in 2002. She became a Senior Scientist in 2009 and has led the Genome Biology Unit at EMBL Heidelberg since then. In December 2021, Furlong was announced as a recipient of the German Leibniz Prize.
Maria Leptin, who was EMBO Director and EMBL group leader until 2021 was also honoured with election as Foreign Member. Leptin is currently President of the European Research Council (ERC).
