Twenty-seven scientists become EMBO Young Investigators

3 December 2024 – EMBO announces the selection of 27 life scientists as the newest members of the EMBO Young Investigator Programme. The programme supports young group leaders in Europe and beyond. The new young investigators will start in January, be active members of the programme for four years, and become part of an international network of nearly 800 current and former EMBO Young Investigators, Installation Grantees and Global Investigators. They carry out research across a wide range of life sciences topics from cell and computational biology to immunology and neuroscience.

“EMBO welcomes the new young investigators, a group of exceptional scientists who represent innovation and excellence in their fields. The multidisciplinary EMBO Young Investigator Network that they will join generates many opportunities for forming connections. We are delighted to support this next generation of scientific leaders and the collaborations they will form,” says EMBO Director Fiona Watt.

Networking opportunities for EMBO Young Investigators and their lab members are central to the programme. The young investigators, who receive an award of 15,000 euros, also benefit from training in laboratory leadership and responsible conduct of research, access to core facilities at EMBL in Heidelberg, Germany, and mentoring by EMBO Members. They can apply for additional grants, for example for organizing or travelling to conferences.

Of the 27 new EMBO Young Investigators, 14 are female (52%) and 13 are male (48%). They are based in 10 member states of the EMBC, the intergovernmental organization that funds the EMBO Programmes, and Japan. In total, the programme received 207 eligible applications, and the success rate was 13%. In the framework of the memorandum of cooperation between EMBO and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), scientists funded by certain programmes of JST were eligible to apply to the EMBO Young Investigator Programme for the first time in 2024.

The next deadline for applications is 1 April 2025. More information about the programme, including eligibility criteria and the application process, is available online.

New EMBO Young Investigators

	Name	Research project	Affiliation	Location
	Ilary Allodi	Understanding the role of neural circuit dysfunctions in ALS-FTD pathophysiology	University of St Andrews	St Andrews, UK
	Benedetta Artegiani	Enlightening brain and liver biology and disease with novel human-based models	Princess Máxima Center for Pediatric Oncology	Utrecht, NL
	Thibaut Brunet	Evolutionary origin of animal morphogenesis	Institut Pasteur	Paris, FR
	Johan Decelle	Structural and metabolic connection in planktonic cell-cell symbioses	Université Grenoble Alpes	Grenoble, FR
	Gautam Dey	Evolutionary cell biology of mitosis and nuclear remodelling	EMBL Heidelberg	Heidelberg, DE
	Basil Greber	Structure and function of DNA repair assemblies and cyclin-dependent kinases	The Institute of Cancer Research	London, UK
	Itamar Harel	Experimental biology of vertebrate aging and age-related diseases	The Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences	Jerusalem, IL
	Katharina Höfer	Bacterial epitranscriptomics	Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology	Marburg, DE
	Momoko Ikeuchi	Self-organization of plant cells during organ regeneration	Nara Institute of Science and Technology	Nara, JP
	Claudia Keller Valsecchi	Gene dosage and sex differences	Institute of Molecular Biology	Mainz, DE
	Charlotte Kirchhelle	From edge to organ: how plants shape organs	National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment	Lyon, FR
	Eva Kummer	Mitochondrial genome maintenance and gene expression	University of Copenhagen	Copenhagen, DK
	Felix Leroy	Neuronal circuits supporting cognition and social interactions in the mouse	Instituto de Neurociencias	San Juan de Alicante, ES
	Gabriel Neurohr	Cell size and crowding homeostasis	ETH Zurich	Zurich, CH
	Mor Nitzan	Representation, inference and design of multicellular systems	Hebrew University	Jerusalem, IL
	Sylvie Noordermeer	DNA double-strand break repair pathways in health and disease	Leiden University Medical Center	Leiden, NL
	Tomáš Pluskal	Decoding the chemical universe of plants	Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry	Prague, CZ
	Lucia Prieto-Godino	Mechanisms of neural circuit evolution: from molecules to networks	The Francis Crick Institute	London, UK
	Julia Qüesta	Epigenetic mechanisms underlying plant developmental transitions	Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics	Barcelona, ES
	Johannes Rebelein	Microbial metalloenzymes: characterizing and engineering microbial nitrogenases	Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology	Marburg, DE
	Erdinc Sezgin	Restoring immune fitness through biophysical manipulations	Karolinska Institutet	Solna, SE
	Marta Shahbazi Alonso	Mechanisms of self-organization in the early mammalian embryo	MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology	Cambridge, UK
	Ralph Stadhouders	Molecular mechanisms underlying lymphocyte memory and dysfunction	Erasmus University Medical Center	Rotterdam, NL
	Teresa Thurston	Host pathogen interactions and innate immune signaling	University of Oxford	Oxford, UK
	Agnes Toth-Petroczy	Protein plasticity and evolution	Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics	Dresden, DE
	Florian Wilfling	Deciphering autophagosome assembly and cargo selection using correlative cryo-ET	Max Planck Institute of Biophysics	Frankfurt, DE
	Simone Zaccaria	Investigating metastatic cancer evolution at single-cell whole-genome resolution	University College London	London, UK