We are excited to announce the latest recipients of early-career research fellowships and grants, including the European Molecular Biology Organization Postdoctoral Fellowships and Boehringer Ingelheim Funds PhD Fellowships. These highly competitive awards, aimed at PhD students and postdoctoral researchers, are internationally recognized for fostering groundbreaking and interdisciplinary research.
Arnau Ramos Prats, Vladyslav Bondarenko and Alexander Hanzl were awarded Postdoctoral Fellowships from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). The fellowships, launched under Switzerland’s transitional measures to maintain participation in the European Union’s flagship research program Horizon Europe, offer funding for postdoctoral researchers of all nationalities to work at Swiss research institutions, covering salary, research and conference costs.
Arnau Ramos Prats was born in Barcelona, Spain, and holds a PhD in Neuroscience from the Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria. In August 2023, he joined the FMI as a postdoctoral researcher in the Lüthi lab. In his project, Arnau uses advanced technologies such as calcium imaging and optogenetics to investigate how the amygdala - the brain’s threat detector - processes stress. Uncovering how the brain controls and manages stress is key to developing better treatments for stress-related conditions such as anxiety and depression.
Vladyslav Bondarenko comes from Ukraine and obtained a PhD in developmental biology from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, and the Hubrecht Institute in Utrecht, the Netherlands. After a first postdoc in human stem cell research at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, Vladyslav joined the Turco lab in 2024. In his postdoctoral research, he combines various experimental models - including organoids and stem cells - with bioengineering and advanced imaging techniques to investigate the mechanisms underlying the formation and function of the fetal-maternal interface during pregnancy.
Originally from Austria, Alexander Hanzl completed a Master’s in Chemistry at the Technical University of Vienna and the FMI in Basel. He obtained a PhD in Chemical Biology from the Center for Molecular Medicine in Vienna, and in August 2023 he started his postdoctoral research in the group of Nicolas Thomä. There, Alex studies small molecules that help degrade specific proteins involved in controlling gene expression - a novel therapeutic approach that offers advantages over traditional drugs. His goal is to understand how these molecules work at a cellular level and to investigate whether naturally occurring substances in the body have similar effects.
Hiranmay Joag received an SNSF’s Spark Grant , designed to support high-risk research that introduces innovative approaches. Hailing from India, Hiranmay completed a PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence in Munich, Germany. In March 2024, he joined the Lüthi lab to study how the brain stores new memories. Neuroscientists know that memory formation is linked to the growth of new synapses, but Hiranmay’s project takes this a step further by removing new synapses after an animal forms a memory and test whether this erases the memory. To do this, Hiranmay uses a tool he developed during his PhD, which allows for the selective removal of new synapses in brain slices. The Spark grant will help him to optimize this technique for use in living mice.
Nora Rier received the Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds award, which provides PhD fellowships to exceptional scientists worldwide. Nora grew up near Bolzano in Italy and pursued a Master’s Degree in Molecular Biosciences at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. In 2023, she joined the Chao lab as a PhD candidate and works together with the Felsenberg group to understand some of the molecular mechanisms involved in memory formation. Memories are stored in the brain by changes in a small group of neurons that alter their connections, triggered by the rapid activation of specific genes. Working in fruit flies, Nora investigates how one of these genes is modified during its transcription from DNA into RNA and how this process affects memory formation.
Verena Mutzel, Mattia Ubertini and Sriram Narayanan were awarded EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowships , which support outstanding postdoctoral researchers for up to two years.
Verena Mutzel studied biotechnology in Germany and South Korea before completing her PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin. In June 2024, she joined the Giorgetti lab, where she combines theoretical and experimental approaches to investigate how specific DNA regions --sometimes located far from the genes they influence-- regulate when, where and how much a gene is expressed.
Mattia Ubertini , originally from Italy, earned a PhD in Physics from the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste before joining the Giorgetti’s lab in November 2023. Mattia studies how specific DNA sequences that control the activity of genes interact in time and space. In particular, he explores how cohesin - a protein complex that forms loops in the DNA molecule - affects these interactions and how this, in turn, influences gene activity.
Born and raised in India, Sriram Narayanan completed a PhD at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore before joining the Friedrich group as a postdoctoral researcher in February 2024. Sriram is interested in how the brain learns to understand and predict the world through experience. Working with zebrafish, he studies the activity of specific brain circuits in a region associated with cognition as the fish learn to navigate their environment.
Announcing recipients of early-career fellowships and grants
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