Professor Ingrid Grummt is currently head of the Division of Molecular Biology at the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg. She received her PhD in 1970 at the Humboldt-University in Berlin, worked as a Postdoc at the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin-Buch and the Max-Planck-Institute of Biochemistry in Munich, and has led a research group since 1977. Professor Grummt has made seminal contributions to our understanding of transcription by RNA Polymerase I. Her work stretches from purification and cloning of core Polymerase subunits through to regulation of ribosomal gene chromatin. Most recently she has discovered a novel RNA-based strategy for epigenetic programming, showing that ncRNAs are capable of forming DNA:RNA triplexes with regulatory gene sequences. These triplex structures are specifically recognized by the DNA methyltransferase DNMT3b, thereby inducing DNA methylation and transcriptional silencing. Professor Grummt has receive number international prizes for her work with the most recent being the 2010 The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) and the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS)  Women in Science Award.

The Lorne Genome Conference gratefully acknowledges the support of EMBO in assiting us with funding Ingrid's travel.