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Congratulation: Dr. Eva Nowack receives the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize 2018

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Dr. Eva Nowack

Dr. Eva Nowack will be awarded with the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize 2018 for her outstanding achievements in the field of organelle evolution in eukaryotic cells. Especially her publications proving independent parallel development of photosynthetic organelles in the evolution of eukaryotic organisms were honored.

The Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize, valued at €20,000, is the most important award for early career researchers in Germany. It is a distinction for young researchers and provides further incentive for excellent achievements in their research work. The recipients were chosen by a selection committee in Bonn appointed by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

"I am very happy about the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz-Preis. It is a great honor and a valuable award that enables me and my group to use the prize money to promote new project ideas" says Eva Nowack.

The Emmy-Noether group leader was able to prove that, contrary to established theory, organelles were  acquired more than twice in eukaryotic evolution. This gives her valuable insights into intermediate stages of integrating a bacterial endosymbiont as a eukaryotic cell organelle.

"As an outstanding junior scientist in the field of organelle evolution, Eva Nowack is awarded the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize. Her pioneering work on the photosynthetic amoeba Paulinella chromatophora already resulted in pioneering discoveries that broke the scientific view of the evolution of photosynthetic organelles and are equally crucial to the overall development of eukaryotic cell compartments. Despite being at a relatively early stage of career, her results have already found their way into textbooks of biology" emphasizes Prof. Michael Feldbrügge in his assessment.

A total of 140 researchers from all disciplines had been proposed for this year's competition. "The outstanding CVs and high-quality work of the candidates made it a very gratifying task for the committee to select the winners among them," said the chairperson of the selection committee, the mathematician and DFG Vice-President Prof. Dr. med. Marlis Hochbruck. The award will be presented on May 29, 2018 as part of a festive event in Berlin.

Dr. Nowack is also involved in the research network of SFB 1208 on the dynamics of membrane systems as well as in the Manchot graduate school "Molecules of infection" at the Heinrich Heine University. In the SFB 1208 she investigates the processes at the contact zone between the host cell and its newly acquired photosynthetic organelles in the amoeba Paulinella chromatophora (http://www.sfb1208.hhu.de/en/projects-and-groups/a09-en.html).

Weiterführende Informationen:
Die Verleihung der Heinz Maier-Leibnitz-Preise 2018 fand am 29. Mai in Berlin statt.
www.uni-duesseldorf.de/home/startseite/news-detailansicht-inkl-gb/article/heinz-maier-leibnitz-preis-2018-in-berlin-an-eva-nowack-verliehen.html
Ausführliche Informationen zum Preis und den bisherigen Preisträgerinnen und Preisträgern finden sich unter: www.dfg.de/maier-leibnitz-preis

Kategorie/n: SFB 1208
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