The city of Darmstadt in Germany hosts a world-class lab where leading physicists have been working on applied physics problems for decades. In 1982 a team prepared the first few atoms of Element 109 and would thereafter become a major participant in the competitive field of preparing synthetic elements along with the Americans and Russians who had been fierce scientific rivals since the 1950's.

Meitnerium is named after Ise Meitner, a leading physicist active in the first half of the 20th century and a colleague of such eminent figures as Max Planck, Enrico Fermi and Niels Bohr. An Austrian Jew, she had to flee a prestigious post in Berlin after Nazi persecution, eventually settling in Stockholm. Throughout her long career she was instrumental in advancing knowledge on the nature of radioactivity and the forces that bind atomic nuclei.