EMBL Group Leader Gautam Dey has been awarded a €150,000 European Research Council (ERC) Proof of Concept Grant to develop a technology that could transform how scientists study and engineer cells.
Unit:
Cell biology and biophysicsSite:
Heidelberg
Grant
2026
GRANT"
CELL BIOLOGY AND BIOPHYSICS"
HEIDELBERG"
The award recognises the EMBL Director’s outstanding achievements in life science research and in building scientific structures across Germany and beyond
The two collaborators received the award for their contributions to the field of evolutionary cell biology, focusing on the origins of nuclear organisation and multicellularity, respectively.
Unit:
Cell biology and biophysicsSite:
Heidelberg
Award
2026
AWARD"
CELL BIOLOGY AND BIOPHYSICS"
HEIDELBERG"
An international team coordinated by Vikas Trivedi at EMBL Barcelona has been awarded an HFSP grant worth $1.5 million (€1.3m) to study how developing organisms stay on track despite climate-driven temperature instability.
Unit:
Tissue biology and disease modellingSite:
Barcelona
Grant
2026
GRANT"
TISSUE BIOLOGY AND DISEASE MODELLING"
BARCELONA"
Two former EMBL researchers have been recognised for their outstanding scientific contributions in the fields of host–microbiome research and structure-guided drug development, respectively.
Unit:
Molecular systems biology, Structural biology – GRSite:
Grenoble, Heidelberg
Jamie Hackett and Robert Prevedel have been awarded ERC Proof of Concept grants to support the translation of innovative ideas arising from their ERC-funded projects into tangible therapeutic and imaging tools.
Unit:
Cell biology and biophysics, Epigenetics and neurobiologySite:
Heidelberg, Rome
Grant
2026
GRANT"
CELL BIOLOGY AND BIOPHYSICS EPIGENETICS AND NEUROBIOLOGY"
HEIDELBERG ROME"
EMBL group leaders Isidro Cortes-Ciriano and Wojciech Galej received ERC Consolidator Grants for their work on how genome structure and gene regulation shape human disease.
The €2.3 million Impulscience® grant will enable the EMBL Grenoble team to advance research on ubiquitin signalling, cancer mechanisms, and therapeutic targets.
Michael Dorrity and Anna Erzberger have received grants that will enable ambitious projects related to developmental timing and tissue self-organisation, respectively.
Unit:
Cell biology and biophysics, Developmental biology, Molecular systems biologySite:
Heidelberg
Grant
2025
GRANT"
CELL BIOLOGY AND BIOPHYSICS DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY MOLECULAR SYSTEMS BIOLOGY"
HEIDELBERG"
EMBL group leaders Olivier Duss, Simone Köhler, and Eva Kowalinski received ERC Consolidator Grants for their promising work on fundamental cellular mechanisms.
Unit:
Cell biology and biophysics, Molecular systems biology, Structural biology – GRSite:
Grenoble, Heidelberg
Grant
2024
GRANT"
CELL BIOLOGY AND BIOPHYSICS MOLECULAR SYSTEMS BIOLOGY STRUCTURAL BIOLOGY – GR"
GRENOBLE HEIDELBERG"
Eileen Furlong, Head of Genome Biology Unit at EMBL Heidelberg, was elected member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina for her outstanding research in the section ‘Human Genetics and Molecular Medicine’.
The award recognises the team leader's work on developing Thermal Proteome Profiling (TPP), an unbiased proteomics approach for identifying protein targets of drugs and phenotyping cellular states.