19 March 2025 – Aude Bernheim, leader of the Molecular Diversity of Microbes Laboratory at Institut Pasteur, Paris, was appointed in 2023 to France’s Presidential Science Council, an advisory body tasked to advise the president on scientific matters. She praises EMBO for its significant role in advancing her scientific career, from attending her first international conference to her postdoctoral fellowship. “EMBO is a scientific organization that I admire, and I believe that it holds a unique position in the European research landscape. My field of research is very new, and the EMBO support has been invaluable in recognizing the importance of basic research, allowing us to take risks and supporting a blooming scientific community,” she says.
Bernheim’s work focuses on how bacteria defend themselves against viruses and the conservation of anti-phage systems across life domains. Her admission to the EMBO Young Investigator Programme has been crucial in this regard to support lab operations, research exchanges, and fostering a collaborative scientific community. “The EMBO Young Investigator Programme has been developed by and for researchers,” she says. “It gives us access to some of the best research infrastructures in the world.”
Bernheim joined the EMBO Scientific Exchange Grants Advisory Board in 2023. “I love reviewing the applications. It puts a smile on my face to learn that early career researchers value international cooperation,” she says. “Young scientists are interested in building bridges among countries and disciplines. EMBO supports emerging research and, if it wasn’t for EMBO, we as researchers would be forced to focus on mainstream scientific issues, without having the opportunity to delve further in little matters that aren’t supported. Science would suffer in a world without EMBO.”
