Martin Hetzer joins EMBO

Molecular biologist Martin Hetzer of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) joins the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). Besides his extensive work in the field, Hetzer has also been president of ISTA since 2023.

EMBO is an international organization of life scientists. Currently headquartered in Heidelberg, Germany and celebrating its 60^th anniversary, the organization has more than 2,000 members, all of whom are elected by peers. Joining Hetzer in his new membership at EMBO are 120 other biological scientists. The prestigious organization “honors distinguished scientists who have made outstanding contributions to the life sciences.” Hetzer is already the ninth EMBO member at ISTA.

Hetzer’s research group at ISTA combines genomics, proteomics, and advanced imaging techniques to investigate long-lived cells, which fail to work properly as they age. Hetzer and his team aim to use the results of their research to better understand and potentially slow aging processes in the brain and other organs with limited cell renewal. Recently, Hetzer helped reveal the existence of long-lived RNAs in nerve cells of the brain, and published the results in Science.

Hetzer’s list of distinctions and awards is extensive, including an Early Life Scientist Award from the American Society of Cell Biology (2009), the Glenn Award for Research in Biological Mechanisms of Aging (2013), as well as the Keck Foundation Research Award and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Transformative Research Award (both in 2015). In 2023, he took over the presidency of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA). Before that, he served as the Senior Vice President of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California.

The Institute congratulates Martin Hetzer on his election to EMBO.