Xiaoqi Feng, Anđela Šarić and Gašper Tkačik Join EMBO

Plant geneticist Xiaoqi Feng, soft matter physicist Anđela Šarić and biophysicist Gašper Tkačik, all professors at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), have joined the prestigious European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), an honor reserved for those who have made outstanding contributions to the life sciences.

EMBO is an international organization with more than 2,200 members, all of whom are leading life scientists elected by their peers. It supports talented researchers at every career stage, promotes scientific exchange and fosters an environment where scientists can excel. Joining Feng, Šarić and Tkačik as new members today are 68 other distinguished researchers based in 23 countries. In total, there are now 14 EMBO members at ISTA.

Xiaoqi Feng

Feng’s research group at ISTA uses plant germlines—the cells that contain the genetic information that is passed down from one generation to the next—as a model to explore the core principles of epigenetic regulation and sexual reproduction. The team’s discoveries reveal how genetic and epigenetic information is transmitted, reprogrammed, and reset in germ cells. Feng’s pioneering work has also shown how somatic nurse cells communicate with germ cells and how environmental conditions can influence reproductive success and leave lasting epigenetic effects across generations.

Feng joined ISTA in 2023 as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Professor in 2025. She received her D.Phil in plant sciences from the University of Oxford in 2010 and then went on to complete her postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley, between 2011 and 2014. She then became a Group Leader at the John Innes Centre in the United Kingdom. Feng has received multiple awards, including an ERC Starting Grant in 2018 and an ERC Consolidator Grant in 2024. Among other honors, she was named an EMBO Young Investigator in 2018.

Anđela Šarić

Šarić’s research group at ISTA looks at how lifeless molecules come together to create living cells, and what happens when this process goes wrong and causes disease. At the crossroads of physics, chemistry, and biology, the Šarić group develops computer simulations to investigate how molecules organize themselves into the complex structures that make life possible, uncovering the physical principles that keep our cells healthy or lead them astray.

Šarić joined ISTA in 2022 as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Professor in 2023. Before that, she earned a degree in chemistry from the University of Zagreb, Croatia, and a PhD in chemical physics with distinction from Columbia University in 2013. She then completed postdoctoral research at the University of Cambridge, and became a Group Leader at University College London in 2016, where she was tenured as an Associate Professor of Biological and Soft Matter Physics in 2019. Šarić has received several awards and distinctions, including an ERC Starting Grant in 2018, selection as an EMBO Young Investigator in 2020 and a Vallee Scholars Award in 2022. In 2024, she was named an Allen Distinguished Investigator to lead a $1.5 million project on active membranes.

Gašper Tkačik

Tkačik’s research group at ISTA looks at how biological networks, from genes and signaling pathways to neurons and whole organisms, process information and reliably perform their functions despite constraints. Combining biophysics and information theory, the group explores how cells choose their fates, how neurons encode sensory input, and how molecular interactions shape regulatory networks. Combining theoretical modeling with data-driven collaborations, the group’s goal is to uncover the core principles of information processing in living systems.

Tkačik joined ISTA in 2011 as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Professor in 2017. Since 2025, he has also served as Deputy Dean of the Graduate School. Previously, he studied physics at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia and earned his PhD at Princeton University in 2007, where he continued as a postdoc before moving to the University of Pennsylvania for further postdoctoral work from 2008 to 2010. In 2023, Tkačik was one of a trio of researchers awarded an ERC Synergy Grant. His distinctions also include the 2020 Ignaz L. Lieben Prize of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW).

New EMBO Young Investigator

EMBO also supports outstanding early-career researchers through its Young Investigator program. In December 2025, Assistant Professor Lora Sweeney—whose group at ISTA studies how molecular, cellular and neural circuit mechanisms shape motor behavior and development across vertebrates, including Xenopus frogs—was selected for this distinction.

The Institute congratulates Xiaoqi Feng, Andela Šarić and Gašper Tkačik on their election to EMBO and Lora Sweeney for becoming  an EMBO Young Investigator.