Hamburg, June 28, 2024
This year, the Hamburg-based life sciences company Eppendorf SE is presenting its prestigious research award for the 29th time. The independent jury chaired by Prof. Laura Machesky, Cambridge, UK, selected Dr. Clemens Plaschka, IMP - Institute of Molecular Pathology, Vienna, Austria, as the winner of the Eppendorf Award for Young European Investigators 2024.
Clemens Plaschka, born in 1989, receives the €20,000 award for his research on the molecular machines that produce and export messenger RNA. The prize is awarded in recognition of his groundbreaking discoveries that uncover the mechanisms of mRNA production and maturation. Several complex cellular machines are involved in mRNA production, which process and control the maturation and eventual export of mRNA from the nucleus to the cytoplasm.

"Plaschka's structural and mechanistic studies have provided fundamental insights into how cells express genes, and his work has implications for human diseases in which mutations occur in key mRNA processing machinery," said the jury.

Clemens Plaschka: "I am delighted to receive the Eppendorf Award for Young European Investigators 2024. This award is a special recognition for our highly motivated research team whose efforts have made this possible. I am also very grateful for the excellent support from the IMP and Boehringer Ingelheim, the ERC, our colleagues at the Vienna BioCenter and outside, as well as my family. The award recognizes our contributions to uncovering the structural mechanisms by which a human mRNA is formed. However, many questions remain unanswered. In the coming years, we look forward to further understanding the molecular processes that regulate how an mRNA is formed and destroyed."
In addition to the winner of the Eppendorf Award 2024, two finalists were honored.
Irma Querques, assistant professor and group leader at the Max Perutz Laboratories at the University of Vienna, receives the award for her work on developing new strategies for transposon-mediated genetic manipulation and uncovering the structural basis for CRISPR-associated transposition. "Querques' work not only provides new mechanistic insights into how these mobile units enable site-specific insertion, but also new programmable strategies for targeted genetic modification," the judges said.
Phong Nguyen, PostDoc at the Hubrecht Institute in Utrecht, is honored for his research on the molecular and cellular mechanisms of heart regeneration. He discovered a detailed sequence of molecular events that control the degradation and reconstruction of structural elements in the heart muscle, allowing cells to proliferate and functionally integrate back into the injured heart. The jury noted that his discovery provides a fundamental insight into the biology of tissue regeneration and provides new targets for future therapeutic approaches to cardiac injury.

The award ceremony took place on June 27, 2024 at the Advanced Training Center of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg.

Further information on application modalities, selection criteria and previous winners of the Eppendorf Award for Young European Investigators can be found at www.eppendorf.com/award.

With the Eppendorf Award for Young European Investigators, initiated in 1995, Eppendorf SE recognizes outstanding research work in the biomedical sector and supports young scientists in Europe up to the age of 35. The Eppendorf Award is presented in cooperation with the scientific journal Nature. the award is decided by an independent jury consisting of Laura Machesky (University of Cambridge, UK), Sadaf Farooqi (Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science, Cambridge, UK), Madeline Lancaster (MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK), Ben Lehner ((Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK; Center for Genomic Regulation PRBB, Barcelona, Spain), Stefan Raunser (Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology, Dortmund) and
Michael Sixt (Institute of Science and Technology Austria ISTA, Klosterneuburg, Austria).