Wolf Reik obtained his MD from the University of Hamburg. He did his thesis work with Rudolf Jaenisch, and postdoctoral work with Azim Surani in Cambridge. He was a Fellow of the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine at Cambridge and the Institute’s Associate Director (2004-2020) and Head of the Epigenetics Programme (2008-2020). From May 2020 – July 2021 he held the position of Acting Director and then permanent Director for the Institute. He is honorary Professor of Epigenetics at the University of Cambridge, Associate Faculty at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Affiliate Faculty at the Stem Cell Institute and a member of the Centre for Trophoblast Research.

His research interests are in mammalian epigenetics, particularly in epigenetic reprogramming during mammalian development and its role in stem cell biology, inheritance and ageing. He has published more than 250 research articles with an h-index of 122. He won the Wellcome Prize in Physiology and is a member of EMBO and the Academia Europaea, and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal Society.