News

Tanmay Bharat, a Group Leader at the Dunn School and a Royal Society and Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Dale Fellow, has been awarded the 2019 EMBL John Kendrew Young Scientist Award. This competition recognises individuals who have worked at the EMBL (European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg, Germany) at some point of their careers and have since then excelled in scientific research and/or science communication.

Tanmay worked in Dr. John Briggs’ group at EMBL as a PhD student from 2008 until 2013, where he developed and applied cutting edge cryo-electron microscopy methods to study pathogenic viruses. Using novel imaging and image processing tools, Tanmay solved structures of capsids from several human pathogens including Ebola virus, Marburg virus, and HIV-1.

‘As a structural biologist, I am honoured to be selected for the John Kendrew Award. I admire all the past winners, and I am delighted to hear the news! I would like to thank Matthew Freeman for nominating me, and John Briggs for creating a great laboratory that I was fortunate to be a part of.’

Launched in 2007 by the EMBL Alumni Association, this award honours Sir John Kendrew, the EMBL’s first ever director. It aims to support young scientists in the early stages of their career; it is open to all those who have completed a PhD or undertook a postdoctoral training at the EMBL between 2 and 7 years ago and have since continued their research elsewhere. The award consists of a gold-plated medal, a cash prize of €7,500 (~£6,570) and the chance to present at the Awards Ceremony on the EMBL Lab Day, on the 20^th of July 2019.

Currently, the Tanmay’s group studies bacterial biofilms (multi-cellular bacterial communities which form during most human bacterial infections) using a combination of cryo-electron microscopy, biochemistry and microbiology.

To read more about the Tanmay’s lab.

Read more about the John Kendrew Young Scientist Award.

 Written by: Lisa Gartenmann