IMP PhD Student Paul Welzl Receives 2025 Lauwers Award
Paul Welzl, PhD student at the IMP with Clemens Plaschka and Francisco Balzarotti, has been recognised with the 2025 Lauwers Award for his outstanding Monday seminar, honouring his clear and engaging presentation of cutting-edge research on mRNA organisation.
Paul Welzl, a PhD student in the Vienna BioCenter PhD Program and joint member of the laboratories of Clemens Plaschka and Francisco Balzarotti at the IMP, has received the 2025 Lauwers Award for the best Monday seminar presentation. The award recognises excellence in scientific communication and is presented annually in memory of Mattias Lauwers.
Paul was honoured for his talk “Super-resolved imaging of native mRNA particle ultrastructure,” in which he presented pioneering work combining DNA-PAINT and MINFLUX microscopy to visualise messenger RNA (mRNA) organisation at nanometre resolution. His innovative approach enables the first multiplexed super-resolution imaging of native mRNA molecules in cells, offering new insights into how RNA structure relates to gene expression.
In his PhD project, Paul studies how mRNA—the molecule that carries genetic information from DNA to the cell’s protein-making machinery—is organised and packaged inside cells. Proper packaging helps keep mRNA molecules stable and ready for translation. By developing new high-resolution imaging methods, Paul aims to reveal how this packaging process works in space and time, advancing our understanding of one of the most fundamental steps in gene expression.
Welzl received the award during the Vienna BioCenter PhD Symposium on 7 November, where he also gave a short presentation about his work.
Further reading
Lab of Francisco Balzarotti