Clemens Plaschka elected EMBO member
Clemens Plaschka, Senior Group Leader at the IMP, has been elected to the prestigious European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), becoming the 8th out of 14 IMP active faculty members to receive this honour.
Today, the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) announced the election of 69 new members. Among them is Clemens Plaschka, who has led a research group at the IMP since 2018 and was promoted to the institute’s senior faculty earlier this year.
Plaschka and his lab have made key contributions to understanding RNA splicing and mRNA maturation, processes that are essential for gene expression. RNA splicing removes non-coding introns from mRNA transcripts, leaving coding exons to form mature mRNA. These mRNAs are then packaged into mRNA-protein complexes for their subsequent transport out of the nucleus and into the cytoplasm, where they inform protein synthesis.
Recently, Plaschka’s lab revealed how mRNAs are recognised and prepared for export, showing that they form compact globules before leaving the nucleus. These findings significantly advanced our understanding of the final steps of nuclear gene expression. The lab has also discovered details about how the spliceosome comes together and gets taken apart in the cell, including a “multi-factor authentication” mechanism that ensures precise timing of the process. These discoveries helped reshape current models of mRNA maturation, providing critical insights into how the cell safeguards the fidelity of gene expression—a fundamental process underpinning all life. By revealing the molecular checkpoints and organisational principles of RNA processing, Plaschka’s work has opened new avenues for understanding genetic regulation and its misfires in disease.
“I’m sincerely grateful to be elected to EMBO. This recognition reflects the creativity and dedication of our entire team, along with strong support from our colleagues, mentors, and research community at the Vienna BioCenter and beyond. It encourages us to continue exploring the mechanisms that control gene expression.”
About Clemens Plaschka
Following undergraduate studies at Imperial College London, Clemens Plaschka did his doctoral research at the University of Munich and Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in the lab of Patrick Cramer. There, he studied the structural basis of gene activation. Plaschka then became a postdoctoral researcher with Kiyoshi Nagai at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge, where he contributed to the mechanistic understanding of RNA processing by a large molecular machine, called the spliceosome. Plaschka joined the IMP as a Group Leader in 2018 and was promoted to Senior Group Leader in 2025. His lab uses structural, biochemical, and functional methods to study how messenger RNA is made and regulated at different stages of its life cycle. He received the Kulturpreis Bayern (2015) and Otto-Hahn Medal (2016) for his PhD thesis, an EMBO Long-Term Fellowship during his postdoc (2016), an ERC Starting Grant in 2020, and an EMBO Young Investigator Program award in 2022. Plaschka was presented with the Eppendorf Award for Young Investigators and elected to the Young Academy of Austrian Sciences in 2024.
More about EMBO and its Membership
EMBO is the organisation of more than 2,100 leading researchers that promotes excellence in the life sciences in Europe and beyond. Its major goals are supporting talented researchers at all stages of their careers, stimulating the exchange of scientific information, and building a research environment where scientists can achieve their best work.
EMBO’s 2,100 European and worldwide Members and Associate Members are all elected. EMBO Membership is a lifelong honour recognising a scientist’s research excellence and outstanding achievements. 92 EMBO Members and Associate Members are or were Nobel Laureates. The members guide the execution of all EMBO initiatives by serving on EMBO Council, Committees and Advisory Editorial Boards, and review applications for funding. Collectively, EMBO Members influence the direction of science and strengthen research communities. For more information visit: embo.org/the-embo-communities/embo-members
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