Rabitsch Award for IMP alumna Annika Nichols

One of the highlights of the annual IMP-IMBA Recess is the presentation of the Kirsten Peter Rabitsch Award to the most promising PhD-student of either institute.

One of the highlights of the annual IMP-IMBA Recess is the presentation of the Kirsten Peter Rabitsch Award to the most promising PhD-student of either institute. This year, the Scientific Advisory Board unanimously voted to present the accolade to IMP alumna Annika Nichols. Annika was a student in the Vienna BioCenter PhD Programme until May 2018 when she received her doctorate. She recently joined the lab of Alex Schier at Harvard University.

Working in the lab of Manuel Zimmer, Annika studied sleep behavior in C. elegans worms. Adapting a whole-brain calcium imaging technique, she was able to observe for the first time and at single cell resolution entire brains switching between sleep and wakefulness. Her study, which was published in the journal Science, attracted considerable attention within the scientific community. In March 2018, Annika received the Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle for her outstanding achievement during graduate studies in the biological sciences.

The Kirsten Peter Rabitsch Award is named after a brilliant young scientist who passed away shortly after completing his PhD in the lab of Kim Nasmyth. The prize, which is worth 2,000 Euros, was installed in 2006 by the IMP and Kirsten’s family who are sponsoring it to this day and take an active interest in the awardees and their research. The award is a continuing tribute to Kirsten’s outstanding personality and talent and an inspiration for aspiring young scientists at our institute.