Thi Hoang Duong Nguyen Honoured as Eppendorf Young European Investigator 2022

The Eppendorf SE Young European Investigators 2022 Award ceremony, which took place at the spectacular and dynamic EMBL Advanced Training Centre in Heidelberg, Germany (5 July), celebrated its return as a face-to-face event since 2019 and with an exceptionally strong field of applicants the decision was made, for the first time, to nominate two finalists in addition to the winner.

The independent jury, chaired by Professor Reinhard Jahn, selected Dr Thi Hoang Duong Nguyen, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK as this years’s winner of the 27th Eppendorf Award for Young European Investigators 2022.

Lena Pernas, Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing, Cologne, Germany, and Arnau Sebé-Pedrós, Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), Barcelona, Spain, were also honoured for their outstanding contributions to biomedical research in Europe.

Thi Hoang Duong Nguyen, born in 1987, receives the €20,000 award for her pioneering work on the structure and function of two RNA-protein complexes that are essential for all higher organisms: Spliceosome and telomerase.

“Her work provided fundamental insights into the structure and function of these complexes and will have a lasting impact on the understanding of RNA processing and genome stability,” the judges said.

Thi Hoang Duong Nguyen: “I feel humbled and honoured to receive the 2022 Eppendorf Award. I am very grateful to my laboratory, past and present colleagues, mentors, collaborators and family, without whom this would have not been possible. The award recognises our contribution to the elucidation of the molecular mechanisms of important processes through visualisation of the three-dimensional structures of the biological molecules involved. Our current research focuses on cellular pathways that maintain the essential chromosome caps to preserve genomic information. Failures in these pathways result in numerous human diseases. We hope that the insights gained from our work will facilitate therapeutic developments to treat these diseases.”

When asked during a short Q&A session what the next stage of research would be, Thi Hoang Duong Nguyen explained to International Labmate Editor Gwyneth Astles that she would like to apply the research to diseased cells.

The inspirational event rounded off with a flying buffet and drinks in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere.

The Eppendorf Award for Young European Investigators, which was established in 1995, Eppendorf SE honours outstanding work in biomedical research and supports young scientists in Europe up to the age of 35. The Eppendorf Award is presented in partnership with the scientific journal Nature. The Award winner is selected by an independent committee composed of Professor Reinhard Jahn (Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, Germany), Sadaf Farooqi (Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science, Cambridge, UK), Madeline Lancaster (MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK), Ben Lehner (Center for Genomic Regulation PRBB, Barcelona, Spain), Maria Leptin (EMBO, Heidelberg, Germany) and Laura Machesky (Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute, Glasgow, UK).

Visit the Eppendorf website to learn about application modalities, selection criteria and previous winners of the Eppendorf Award for Young European Investigators.

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