Even as a child, Nicole Dubilier was fascinated by the sea. Today, the award-winning researcher lets out a hearty laugh at the thought that a worm was responsible for bringing about an abrupt change in her academic career. Her discovery of the symbiotic three-way relationship between a marine worm and two kinds of bacteria was published in 2001 in Nature, and brought fame to the Hamburg-born scientist. Today, on top of a position as director of the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, she counts among the world's leading microbiologists.

Dagmar Köhler-Repp was in her mid-twenties when she took the brave step into self-employment. Immediately after completing her studies, the graduate founded the veterinary vaccine company Ripac-Labor. What began as a one-person operation in the basement of her parents' apartment in Berlin in 2001 is now a high-tech company based in Science Park Potsdam-Golm. In 2014, the successful businesswoman and mother of two was named Brandenburg Entrepreneur of the Year.

Chess is a popular sport in his homeland. As a native of Ukraine, Yuri Gleba feels a connection with the game of kings. His motto: “Entrepreneurs should be able to think like a Grand Master.” Today, the businessman with a doctorate in plant physiology and genetics has proven this motto with his companies Nomad Biosciences and Icon Genetics. The business world is where the 65-year-old feels at home: “Science, politics, your competitors – you have to consider aspects from highly different areas.

Paris, 1981. The twelve-year-old Emmanuelle comes home from school, where she has been studying her favourite subject – biology. The girl says to her mother: “One day, I’m going to work at the Pasteur Institute!” A confident prediction, but Emmanuelle Charpentier did indeed go on to complete her doctoral thesis at the renowned Parisian research centre. However, the twelve-year-old Charpentier could not foresee that 30 years later, as a weathered biologist, she would be responsible for a minor revolution in her field.

It is not the first company that Ulrich Rabausch had made a start on, but it is the first to which the microbiologist from the University of Hamburg has devoted his professional career. The company is occupied with the production of health-promoting, cosmetically active ingredients for the cosmetics industry. “I’ve always found the business side of things to be exciting,” says Rabausch, who already in his student days dipped his toe into business founding with the creation of the firm FrutAmazon.