Iain William Mattaj

Iain William Mattaj (born 5 October 1952 in St Andrews, Scotland, UK) is a British scientist and Honorary Professor at Heidelberg University in Germany. From 2005 to 2018 he was Director General of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). He stepped down from the position at the end of 2018 following his appointment to Human Technopole. In January 2019 he took office as the first Director of Human Technopole, the new Italian institute for life sciences in Milan, Italy.

Education Prof. Mattaj has a degree in biochemistry from the University of Edinburgh (BSc) and he obtained a PhD from the University of Leeds

Research Mattaj has made a number of important contributions to our knowledge concerning how RNA and proteins are transported between the cell nucleus and cytoplasm. These findings stemmed from his early work on the import and export of ribonucleoproteins — RNA–protein complexes — to and from the cell nucleus.

Awards and honours Mattaj was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1999, a Fellow of Academia Europaea in 1999, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2000, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001, a Fellow of the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina in 2005, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences FMedSci in 2016 and a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) in 2017. In 2001 he was awarded the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine. Over the years he has received Honorary Doctorates from the University of Edinburgh, the University of Dundee, Umea University and the University of Leeds. He was Editor of EMBO Journal from 1991-2004 and since 2017 he is Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Darwin Trust. In September 2021, during a ceremony at EMBL Heidelberg, Prof Mattaj received the Verdienstkreuz for his commitment to science. In the same month he was also elected as a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to the class for Biosciences.