{"id":78121,"date":"2026-01-16T16:53:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T15:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/?p=78121"},"modified":"2026-01-23T15:42:33","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T14:42:33","slug":"in-remembrance-of-peer-bork","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/embl-announcements\/in-remembrance-of-peer-bork\/","title":{"rendered":"In remembrance of Peer Bork\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n<p>It is with great sadness that EMBL announces that Interim Director General Professor Peer Bork passed away from natural causes on 16 January 2026. Our thoughts are with his family, his friends, his colleagues, and his many personal and professional connections during this time.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As Interim Director General, Peer Bork led the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) since March 2025. He worked closely with Interim Executive Director Ewan Birney and many colleagues across EMBL\u2019s six sites.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He joined EMBL as visiting scientist in 1991, and has held different roles since then, including as Director of EMBL Heidelberg (2020-2025) and as Head of the Structural and Computational Biology Unit (2001-2021).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>EMBL is in touch with its wide and varied community during this time.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EMBL and its community are deeply saddened by the death of Peer Bork, the organisation\u2019s Interim Director General.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":78125,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17597,1],"tags":[365],"embl_taxonomy":[19081],"class_list":["post-78121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-embl-announcements","category-uncategorized","tag-bork","embl_taxonomy-peer-bork"],"acf":{"vfwp-news_embl_taxonomy":[19081],"featured":true,"show_featured_image":false,"field_target_display":"embl","field_article_language":{"value":"english","label":"English"},"article_intro":"","related_links":[{"link_description":"Interim Director General","link_url":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/governance\/interim-director-general\/"}],"source_article":false,"in_this_article":false,"press_contact":"None","article_translations":false,"languages":"","vf_locked":false},"embl_taxonomy_terms":[{"uuid":"a:2:{i:0;s:36:\"4428d1fd-441a-4d6d-a1c5-5dcf5665f213\";i:1;s:36:\"87f160a6-a7bb-4d97-9709-05d4efc38819\";}","parents":[],"name":["Peer Bork"],"slug":"peer-bork","description":"Who &gt; Peer Bork"}],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>In remembrance of Peer Bork\u00a0 | EMBL<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/embl-announcements\/in-remembrance-of-peer-bork\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In remembrance of Peer Bork\u00a0 | EMBL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"EMBL and its community are deeply saddened by the death of Peer Bork, the organisation\u2019s Interim Director General.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/embl-announcements\/in-remembrance-of-peer-bork\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"EMBL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/embl.org\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/embl.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-01-16T15:53:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-01-23T14:42:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Peer-Bork-profile-2025-2-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1707\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"EMBL Communications\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@embl\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@embl\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"EMBL Communications\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"NewsArticle\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/embl-announcements\/in-remembrance-of-peer-bork\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/embl-announcements\/in-remembrance-of-peer-bork\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"EMBL Communications\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/24871c449497f3467a819096a01dd264\"},\"headline\":\"In remembrance of Peer Bork\u00a0\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-01-16T15:53:19+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-01-23T14:42:33+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/embl-announcements\/in-remembrance-of-peer-bork\/\"},\"wordCount\":127,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/embl-announcements\/in-remembrance-of-peer-bork\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Peer-Bork-profile-2025-2-scaled.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"bork\"],\"articleSection\":[\"EMBL Announcements\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/embl-announcements\/in-remembrance-of-peer-bork\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/embl-announcements\/in-remembrance-of-peer-bork\/\",\"name\":\"In remembrance of Peer Bork\u00a0 | EMBL\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/embl-announcements\/in-remembrance-of-peer-bork\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/embl-announcements\/in-remembrance-of-peer-bork\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Peer-Bork-profile-2025-2-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-01-16T15:53:19+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-01-23T14:42:33+00:00\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/embl-announcements\/in-remembrance-of-peer-bork\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/embl-announcements\/in-remembrance-of-peer-bork\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Peer-Bork-profile-2025-2-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Peer-Bork-profile-2025-2-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1707,\"caption\":\"Peer Bork. 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