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The H.G.K. Westenbrink Prize 2023–2024 has been awarded to Dr. Max Gemmer for his thesis entitled ‘Visualizing Protein Biogenesis at the ER Membrane’. The research was performed at Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ, in the group of Prof. Dr. Friedrich Förster within the Bijvoet Centre for Biomolecular Research.

"Dr. Gemmer’s thesis is praised by the jury as particularly innovative, profound and technically extremely impressive. By using an advanced combination of cryo-electron tomography, cryo-electron microscopy, single-particle analysis and mass spectrometry, Gemmer was able to map the molecular landscape of the ribosome-associated ER translocon at unprecedented resolution. His analysis of no less than 150,000 ribosomes revealed how different polysomes recruit diverse modules in a structured manner, such as an insertase, chaperones and the oligosaccharyltransferase OST.

With his research, Dr. Gemmer has provided fundamentally new insights into the dynamics of protein biogenesis at the ER membrane, with implications for our understanding of the role of this machinery in stress and disease. The publications resulting from this work in leading journals underline the quality and impact of his contributions. The jury therefore expects that this work will be cited extensively in the coming years. In addition to his scientific excellence, Dr. Gemmer distinguishes himself by his ability to convey complex topics to a wider audience in an accessible way. The prize will be awarded during the NVBMB spring symposium in 2025, where Dr. Gemmer will give a lecture on his groundbreaking research."