30 July 2024 – We talked with the 2025 FEBS | EMBO Women in Science Awardee Asifa Akhtar about her research and equal opportunities in science.
You receive the award for your groundbreaking research on the mechanisms regulating gene dosage in fruit flies and mammals and chromosome-wide gene regulation by large non-coding RNAs. What sparked your interest in this research?
Our research on the regulation of gene dosage started with our work on the X chromosome in the fruit fly system. It is a beautiful system because one can visualize the entire set of the proteins and RNAs that decorates the X chromosome. This is so visible that one cannot resist wanting to understand what is happening. The other remarkable thing is that if the X chromosome dosage between males and females is not epigenetically adjusted, all the male fruit flies will die. Most experiments across the research community focus on multi-fold gene expression changes. The dosage compensation paradigm shows that seemingly small differences in gene expression can also elicit a phenotype, and that gene expression is not always about turning genes on and off – it is about fine-tuning them. And this fine-tuning is much more difficult to explore.
Genetics explores the hardwiring in cells. The epigenetic regulation with the different modifications that happen on chromosomes is like “softwiring”, which is reversible and therefore modifiable. The resulting, let’s call it “genetic information plasticity”, fascinates me. It provides a system to first understand how the plasticity is achieved and then to modify it to address diseases. Fruit flies and mammalian systems allow global analyses, gene expression analysis and functional genomics, which we combine with genetics, biochemistry and structural biology and their various technologies in order to dissect the underlying mechanisms.
Where do you see your research heading?
For me, our current headway into the human system is most fascinating. I started my lab investigating flies, then moved into the mouse system to distinguish between the evolutionary conserved and diverged functions of our epigenetic complexes of interest. More recently, my group has been involved in characterizing syndromes in patients that are associated with changes in the proteins that we study. That’s a totally different ball game. We identified the Basilicata-Akhtar-syndrome, which is a developmental disorder resulting from defects in the epigenetic machinery. In biopsy samples from affected patients we, together with cooperation partners, were able to show that drugs that are currently being tested in clinical trials as epigenetic drugs could at least partially ameliorate defects on a cellular level, opening the way for further work. The understanding of the syndrome was possible only because we had done fundamental biochemistry and genetics research in the fly and in the mammalian system. It is a great example of why we need to carry out fundamental research.
What excites you most?
What I truly appreciate and what keeps me motivated is how our research spans the evolutionary scale of the complexes we study – from flies to mice to humans – to actually see where the thread was going all the way across evolution and where the complexes diverged, so that we can understand the functions of these proteins in mammalian cells. One of our discoveries from last year particularly excited me as it showed that the proteins involved in dosage compensation in flies also are involved in a dosage-sensing mechanism regulating allelic expression in mammalian cells.
You have science managerial tasks, you perform research with your lab, you have a family. How do you balance all of this?
There is no easy balance. In a job with so many demands, you work around the clock. But I have to say here, different parts of my life contribute a lot to helping me achieve the demands. The lab members are highly motivated. They are all working well together as a team, and that helps me to sustain a high-profile lab. As I have a family, it’s very crucial that I have a supportive partner, which is a tremendous help. This aspect is actually really important as I do not have superpowers. But I need to be extremely well organized, and I am carried by motivated people around me. Maybe that’s one of the things I can do well: motivating people. On the science management level, I need to be able to communicate and interact with people, finding viable compromises, being diplomatic and especially listening. And I evolve over time as well.
What does receiving the FEBS | EMBO Women in Science Award mean to you?
Receiving this award is truly a great honour. It is a wonderful recognition of the work that the lab does; without the amazing efforts of my team, we would not be making these important discoveries. I am grateful for everybody who has been part of the lab over the last years. But it is also humbling because the award serves to inspire other women in science. It shows that it’s possible to succeed and make significant contributions while navigating the unique challenges women often face in this field. There are still not many women in top positions. It is still hard for women to combine family and work. Every example highlighted is important, because the more examples exist that women can relate to, the better. Drop by drop makes an ocean. I have been very grateful that I have been able to manage that. By receiving this award, I hope to encourage more women to pursue scientific careers and can show that there’s a place for women at the highest levels of scientific research and leadership.
The award also highlights you as a role model, and your engagement in gender equality and diversity in science. What is your current engagement?
I am committed to improving gender equality in science. Among several activities, I am heading the presidential commission of gender diversity and equal opportunities of the Max Planck Society. It is a major and strategic initiative to drive equal opportunities and diversity across all institutes. I also want to make sure that we do everything we can to open doors and possibilities for people from diverse backgrounds, not just women. Science is very open to new ideas and changes, but on a cultural level, we need more awareness of unconscious biases. For example, certain perceptions of the roles of men and women exist in society as a whole, and some of these views are seeping into the scientific establishment. As scientists, it is our responsibility to show that things can be different. It is time for change, and I am here to promote that change. We must go forward because gender quotas are quite dismal and because equal opportunities mean more than only gender balance.
