Andrea Pauli elected EMBO Member

IMP group leader Andrea Pauli is one of 64 newly elected members of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). The distinction brings the number of EMBO members among IMP faculty to seven.

“I am delighted to be elected”, says Andrea Pauli in response to the announcement of 64 new members of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) today. “I have already gotten a taste of the fantastic scientific community that EMBO provides by having benefited from EMBO’s Young Investigator Program over the past three years, which allowed me to connect with peers addressing an incredible breadth of scientific topics at top level. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to play an even more active role and to contribute to shaping science across Europe and on a more global level.”

The new EMBO Members and Associate Members join a community of more than 1,800 leading life scientists. EMBO Members are actively involved in the organization. They serve on EMBO Council, Committees and Advisory Editorial Boards of EMBO Press journals, evaluate applications for EMBO funding, and mentor early-career scientists. Collectively, they can influence the direction of the life sciences in Europe and beyond. Another important aspect of an EMBO membership is in the merit – an election to this organization is an exceptional mark of distinction. With Andrea Pauli, the 16-strong IMP faculty now comprises seven EMBO members.

Andrea Pauli and her lab study the molecular processes that underlie fertilisation and the transition of a fertilised egg into an embryo. Despite being fundamentally important for the beginning of life of any sexually reproducing organism, these steps are relatively poorly understood. Andrea Pauli and her team aim to improve our understanding of the molecular control mechanisms at the root of these earliest stages of new life, by using state-of-the-art techniques in zebrafish embryos as their main model organism.

Andrea Pauli studied in Regensburg and Heidelberg, followed by PhD research first at the IMP in the labs of Kim Nasmyth and Barry Dickson. In 2006, she moved with Kim Nasmyth to the University of Oxford, where she finished her doctoral studies. She then was a postdoctoral fellow with Alex Schier at Harvard, before starting her own lab at the IMP in 2015. In 2018, she was selected for the EMBO Young Investigator Program.  

“I envision that the collaborative spirit we have here at the Vienna BioCenter will be a huge asset to feedback to EMBO,” says Andrea Pauli in recognition of the fruitful environment at Vienna’s buzzling life science hub. With Alwin Köhler and Kristin Tessmar-Raible of the neighbouring Max Perutz Labs also elected to EMBO, there are now 27 EMBO members among the researchers at the Vienna BioCenter. And the community does not stop there: “I am incredibly grateful to all my past mentors, past and current colleagues and collaborators that have helped me to grow as a scientist. But above all, I am indebted to my wonderful lab to whom I would like to dedicate this recognition since they are the ones who have pushed our science far beyond what I have imagined”, says Pauli.

EMBO Director Maria Leptin has welcomed the new members, emphasising the importance of an EMBO membership as an indicator of excellence: “An election to the EMBO Membership recognises outstanding achievements in the life sciences. The new members will provide expertise and guidance that will help EMBO to further strengthen its initiatives.”

The newly elected members are based in 21 countries: 55 new EMBO Members reside in
member states of the EMBC, the intergovernmental organisation that funds the major
EMBO Programmes and activities. Nine new EMBO Associate Members reside in Argentina, Australia, India, Japan, and the USA. 41 percent of the new EMBO Members are women.

New members are nominated and elected by existing EMBO Members; it is not
possible to apply to become a member. One election is held each year. The new EMBO
Members will be formally welcomed at the annual EMBO Members’ Meeting between 27
and 29 October 2021.

Further Reading
Andrea Pauli on this website
EMBO: https://www.embo.org/