10.03.2024 From DNA to protein: Katharina Höfer shows school students the world of research

On International Women's Day, 8 March 2024, the Emil von Behring School in Geislingen welcomed Dr. Katharina Höfer for a lecture.

"Nothing better could happen to us today than to have a renowned female scientist here to tell us how things are going in research. Dr. Katharina Höfer has made it to the top in the male-dominated world of research," said head teacher Gabriele Braun in the auditorium at the start of the event for the first-year classes of the Social and Health Sciences Secondary School and the students of the One-Year Vocational College for Health and Nursing 2. The head of a research team at the Max Planck Institute in Marburg and PI of GRK 2937's Project 6 has been returning to the Emil von Behring School once a school year since 2017, "because I really enjoy it and we have a lot of young natural talents who might want to study science," she explained.

By talking about her own research, Katharina Höfer wants to show that "science is cool and it's worth getting up for it every day". She used her own career as an example to show what the path from A-levels to university studies and a doctorate to a career as a researcher can look like, mentioning a particularly important milestone for her: her employment at the German Primate Centre in Göttingen, where she literally lost her heart to RNA (ribonucleic acid) in 2009. Since then, everything in her world has revolved around the biomolecule, which is probably also familiar to the general public due to the coronavirus vaccines.

In order to better understand what exactly the scientist and her diverse team are researching, Katharina Höfer took a look at the basics of molecular biology. Just as you choose a recipe from a cookery book and use it to make cupcakes, you can imagine the connection between DNA, RNA and protein in a simplified way. She explained important technical terms such as "transcription", "translation", "chromosome", "polymerase" and "hydrogen bonding" using similarly creative and vivid images. The school students followed the lecture with great interest, were actively involved and also had the opportunity to ask questions, whether about scientific degree programmes, the typical daily routine, earnings and career opportunities in science, the role of ethics in research or the expert's opinion on gene scissors and the well-known chicken-and-egg problem. A lively discussion about internationality and interdisciplinarity in science, the patenting of discoveries and revolutions in the pharmaceutical industry continued long after the scheduled end.

Text: abridged and adapted translation of Julia Braunstein