Victoria Deneke receives IBSA Foundation Fellowship
IMP Research Associate Victoria Deneke has been awarded a 2025 IBSA Foundation Fellowship in the field of fertility and urology. The fellowship supports young scientists pursuing innovative basic research and was awarded this year to six researchers from institutions across Europe and the United States.
Victoria Deneke, Research Associate in the lab of Andrea Pauli, has been awarded a 2025 IBSA Foundation Fellowship. She was one of six researchers selected for the fellowship, which supports pioneering work across a range of biomedical fields and recognises outstanding early-career scientists. In 2025, the programme attracted a record 398 applications from 64 countries. The award was presented during a ceremony hosted by the Real Academia de Medicina de Cataluña in Barcelona, Spain.
Deneke studies the molecular mechanisms that enable fertilisation. Using zebrafish as a model system, she investigates how egg and sperm recognise each other and initiate the first steps of a new life. Combining artificial intelligence-based structural predictions with experimental approaches, Deneke, together with two PhD students in the Pauli lab, revealed how the fertilisation complex assembles and demonstrated that a lock-and-key mechanism essential for fertilisation is conserved across vertebrates. Her current research aims to discover how the newly identified protein machinery driving sperm-egg interaction ultimately enables membrane fusion, addressing a fundamental open question in vertebrate fertilisation.
Victoria Deneke earned her PhD in Cell Biology from Duke University in 2019 before joining the IMP. In 2020, she received the Harold M. Weintraub Award for her doctoral research. Her postdoctoral work has been supported by fellowships from the Human Frontier Science Program and the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). Part of her research on the molecular mechanisms of fertilisation was published in Cell in 2024.
About the IBSA Foundation
Established in 2012 in Lugano, Switzerland, the IBSA Foundation for scientific research promotes “Science for all” through initiatives that support research, education, and the dissemination of scientific knowledge. The Foundation supports young researchers through fellowships and scholarships, fosters dialogue between science and the humanities, and works to make scientific culture accessible to a broad audience.
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