She is an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Rebecca C. Lancefield Professor of Mammalian Cell Biology and Development at The Rockefeller University.

During an interview with Faiza Elmasry in 2010, Fuchs said, "I think like many of the children in our world, I got interested in science just from having a butterfly net and from having a few strainers and some boots and going down to the streams and creeks and being out in the fields.

Fuchs was politically active during college, protesting the Vietnam War and applying to the Peace Corps with the intention of being posted in Chile.

During an interview in 2009, Fuchs stated, “…I felt that the Graduate Record Examination wasn’t testing my real knowledge, but rather how I could perform in a written exam.” Instead, she submitted a three-page explanation with her applications explaining why she would not be taking the GRE.

“I don’t think professors are as open-minded toward rebellious students as they were during the Vietnam War era.”[3] Fuchs earned her Ph.D. in biochemical sciences from Princeton University in 1977.

In 2002, Fuchs accepted a position at Rockefeller University, where she is currently the Rebecca C. Lancefield Professor of Mammalian Cell Biology and Development and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

In 2009 Fuchs was awarded the United States’ highest honor for scientific contributions, the National Medal of Science, by President Barack Obama.

Subsequent collaboration with dermatologists to obtain skin samples from patients with the dermatological disorder revealed that a similar mutation in keratin genes indeed underlies the condition.

[citation needed] Her research demonstrated that cancerous stem cells lacking the TGF-β signal proliferate more quickly but are sensitive to antiproliferative drugs.

[16] She showed the ability of TGF-β to cause up-regulation of the glutathione pathway, which allowed the SCCs to counter the radical oxygen species often used in radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

And we have a responsibility to maintain the highest scientific and ethical standards and to serve as the best role models we can for the younger generation of outstanding scientists – both men and women – who are rising through the ranks.