[7] After the Abitur in 1962, she briefly considered pursuing medicine, but dropped the idea after doing a month’s nursing course in a hospital.

"[6] She received a diploma in biochemistry in 1969[5] and earned a PhD in 1974 for research into protein–DNA interactions and the binding of RNA polymerase in Escherichia coli.

In 1978, she set up her own lab in the newly founded European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg with Eric Wieschaus, whom she had met in Basel.

From 1984 until her retirement in 2014, she was the director of the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen and also led its genetics department.

[4] During the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, little was known about the genetic and molecular mechanisms by which multicellular organisms develop from single cells to morphologically complex forms during embryogenesis.

Nüsslein-Volhard and Wieschaus identified genes involved in embryonic development by a series of  genetic screens, generating random mutations in fruit flies using ethyl methanesulfonate.

Many of these genes were given descriptive names based on the appearance of the mutant larvae, such as hedgehog, gurken (German: "cucumbers"), and Krüppel ("cripple").

[11] These experiments are not only distinguished by their sheer scale (with the methods available at the time, they involved an enormous workload), but more importantly by their significance for organisms other than fruit flies.

Her findings led to important realizations about evolution – for example, that protostomes and deuterostomes are likely to have had a relatively well-developed common ancestor with a much more complex body plan than had been conventionally thought.