2022 RNA Society Early- and Mid-Career Award Winners
Posted on January 29, 2022

The RNA Society is delighted to announce the winners of our 2022 Early-Career and Mid-Career Research Awards. Please join us in congratulating Dr. Nicholas Guydosh and Dr. Julius Brennecke for being selected to receive these esteemed awards and for their exceptional research achievements. Please also look for their award presentations detailing their work at the 2022 RNA Society Annual Meeting, which will be held in Boulder, Colorado from May 31^st to June 5^th.

2022 RNA Society Early-Career Research Award 

Dr. Nicholas Guydosh, of the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, USA, is the recipient of the RNA Society Early-Career Research Award. Dr. Guydosh completed his Postdoctoral training at Johns Hopkins University under the mentorship of Rachael Green in 2016 and since that time has lead a research group focusing on translation dynamics and ribosomal recycling. In the short time as an independent investigator, Dr. Guydosh has made a number of key advances, including applying novel ribosome profiling methodology to elucidate the role for key proteins in ribosome recycling, determining how ribosome collisions trigger ribosome-associated quality control pathways, and in investigating how key ribosome recycling proteins play a role in viral infection. Dr. Guydosh is noted for promoting a culture of diversity, equity and inclusion in his laboratory and for his mentoring – with a number of his trainees having been recipients of prizes or awards (including at a number of RNA Society Annual Meetings). Finally, Dr. Guydosh is heavily involved in supporting and participating in local and national RNA-based activities and has become a valued member of our RNA community.

2022 RNA Society Mid-Career Research Award

Dr. Julius Brennecke, a Senior Scientist at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology in Austria (IMBA), is the recipient of the RNA Society  Mid-Career Research Award. After undergraduate studies at Ruprecht-Karls University in Heidelberg, Germany, Dr. Brennecke joined Dr. Stephen Cohen’s lab at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, for his Ph.D. training, where he made seminal advances in target identification and physiological function of miRNAs in Drosophila. He then joined the lab of Dr. Greg Hannon at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories (CSHL), New York, USA as a Postdoctoral Fellow where he co-discovered the piRNA pathway - the major defense system of the germline genome against transposons in animals. In 2009, Dr. Brennecke joined IMBA as an Junior Group Leader to embark on his independent research. By elegantly combining genetics, biochemistry, genomics, and bioinformatics, Dr. Brennecke has made tremendous contributions to the field of small RNA and continuously provides fascinating new perspectives on the molecular mechanisms and biological roles of microRNAs, endogenous siRNAs, and piRNAs. Finally, Dr. Brennecke has demonstrated dedication to education and mentorship, playing central roles in the Vienna Biocenter graduate program and training many successful RNA researchers in his own lab. He is a generous contributor to the RNA community, serving as an organizer of the Vienna Biocenter RNA Club (one of the RNA Society’s RNA Salon locations), the annual Microsymposium on Small RNAs, EMBO/EMBL Workshops, and Keystone Symposia. In addition to his current position at IMBA, Dr. Brennecke is a full member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO).