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Prof. Dr. Meytal Landau
Professorship for Functional Fibrils - Integrative Structural Biology of Amyloids
What sparked your interest in a career in science resp. your professional field?
It started at the age of 6 in which I wondered how drugs work. During pharmacology training I fell in love with protein structure and dynamics. Today I am a structural biologist.
Did you always want to become a professor?
From the Bachelors. I liked academia and thinking about science.
What still excites you as a professor?
Mentoring lab members, little discoveries on protein behaviours, brainstorming about hypothesis and results, strategies for larger projects involving multiple institutes and fields.
What do you like about working as a professor?
Ever growing and changing job.
Is there anything that you do not like much about working as a professor?
Admin and forms. Sometimes the responsibilities and assignment, which dont allow taking some break is too exhausting.
Were there critical phases in your career and how did you deal with them?
Decision making on where in the world to be located/relocated. I followed what decision will have a better feelings even if the rational is indecisive.
What are the main topics of your research?
Structure, function and mechanisms of functional protein fibrils involved in infectious and neurodegenerative diseases.
In your opinion, does a young researcher/physician need to decide to take the path towards a professorship already at a very early stage in her/his career?
Its not a total must, but it helps being an arrow to the target.
How would you rate the work-life and work-familiy balance while being a professor?
Poor. No time for much, but still doable with some prioritization and compromises.
Please state briefly about a very special moment in your career.
A discovery in which I understood that some dogmas can be broken. Many discoveries, big or small, lead to a huge excitement of wanting already to share it with the world.
Which supporting structures and supporting activities were helpful for you on your way to professorship? Was there a special person who inspired you?
My PhD and postdoc mentors gave me a lot of freedom and independence which were critical for my development. Lab members along the way allowed my to enjoy the routine and to have mind provoking discussions.
What are your future visions, what do you want to achieve in the future?
To see my lab members leave the nest and finding the right path for them.To have more discoveries. To grow into additional roles with more impact on science and politics.
Do you have any advice that you would like to give young scientists and students to take away with them?
My advice is to constantly reflect. On what does good for you, where you can observe situations in which fear holds you back, and work on that, to enjoy the little things on the way to a big goal, whether it comes or not, not to get lost in experiments but to constantly think about the questions and goals. To be honest with what you like doing, good at, your willing to invest, and to compromise, and what you are really passionate about.
MILESTONES
2008
PhD Tel-Aviv University
Postdoc UCLA, USA
2012
Assistant Professor, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
2019
Associate Professor, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
2023
W3 Professor, UKE / Lead Scientist DESY
WORK AREA
Prof. Dr. Meytal Landau
- Leitende Wissenschaftlerin am DESY, CSSB
- W3 Professur am UKE