Professor Ulrike Gaul is an internationally leading development biologist whose work on the fruit fly drosophila has contributed enormously to our understanding of gene regulation during organismic development. The scientist was awarded one of the first Humboldt Professorships in 2008, Germany’s most highly endowed research award. With this prize, the eponymous foundation and the German Federal Ministry of Research seek to recruit renowned scientists from all over the globe to carry out long-term research activities in Germany. The candidates can be nominated by all German universities because the nominee’s research has to fit into the institution’s strategic planning. After 20 years of research at leading institutions in the US, Ulrike Gaul will be returning to Germany, because the five million euros provided by the Humboldt award made the offer from LMU, with its excellent working conditions, irresistible. In close cooperation with her colleagues at the Gene Center of LMU Munich, the development biologist will establish a new research focus in molecular biology.