Doc fellowships by the Austrian Academy of Sciences for two IMP students
Loni Klaus and Oliver Hendy, both PhD students in the lab of Alexander Stark, receive a prestigious DOC fellowship from the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW).
Loni Klaus and Oliver Hendy both do their doctoral research with Alexander Stark, whose research is dedicated to the unravelling of the regulatory mechanisms that control gene expression.
The goal of Loni Klaus’ project is to improve the understanding of how transcriptional repression is achieved. To address this question, Klaus focusses on repressive domains (RDs), the parts of repressive transcription factors that mediate repression. She identifies RDs using a Next-Generation-Sequencing-based screening approach and classifies them according to their sequence properties and context dependencies. Additionally, Klaus investigates the specific repressive mechanisms of RDs and the co-repressors they interact with. Before joining the IMP in 2019, did her MSc in biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Potsdam and the Terrence Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research in Canada, following undergraduate studies in biotechnology at Beuth Hochschule für Technik in Berlin.
Oliver Hendy uses rapid protein depletion to study the dependencies of transcriptional programs in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Specifically, he focuses on understanding why genes involved in core cellular processes require different transcriptional activators than genes used for cell type specification. Using these approaches, one can better understand how regulation of a genome is ‘managed’ by a cell. Before joining the IMP in 2017, Hendy completed his bachelor’s degree in science from The College of New Jersey.
The DOC Fellowship Programme of the Austrian Academy of Sciences offers funding for highly qualified doctoral candidates in all areas of research. The fellowships in the amount of 38,000 Euros should allow young researchers to “dedicate themselves to working in focused fashion to complete their doctoral thesis within a clear timeframe”.
Further reading
Stark Lab at IMP
Alexander Stark’s Lab Website
Doc Fellowships (ÖAW)