Edward Lemke awarded an ERC Advanced Grant
Edward Lemke, an Adjunct Director at the Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB) and Professor of Synthetic Biophysics at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). This highly competitive and prestigious grant will support his research with approximately €3 million in EU funding over the next five years.
The ERC Advanced Grant is one of the ERC's most highly endowed funding schemes. It is aimed at established leading researchers with an outstanding scientific track record who seek to open up new fields of research. Edward previously received an ERC Advanced Grant in 2019 and an ERC Consolidator Grant in 2015, which provided similar funding amounts. This year, 319 researchers from 24 countries were awarded an ERC Advanced Grant, out of a total of 3,329 applications.
“I am honoured to receive this ERC Advanced Grant”, says Edward. “This project builds on many years of work by an exceptional team. Now with the support of the ERC, we aim to develop a new branch of protein visualisation techniques that will enable us to see how proteins change shape inside living cells in real time – and in doing so provide a fundamentally new way to study life at the molecular level.”
The funded project in detail: Molecular Shape Microscopy (MShapeM)
Understanding how proteins work in living cells is one of biology's great challenges. Fluorescence technologies are compatible with studies on living cells, but studying protein structures in the single-digit nanometre range severely restricts the time resolution, typically to that of fixed-cell experiments. Moreover, as most proteins are complex multi-domain machines, to truly understand their biological function, we need to do more than image their position; we need to visualise their actual conformation, i.e. their 3D structure and dynamics and how their shape changes throughout their molecular activity.
Edward’s project Molecular Shape Microscopy (MShapeM) is designed to achieve real-time nanometer-resolution imaging of protein conformational dynamics inside the living cell. MShapeM is not a single technology, but integrates synergistic advances in three cutting-edge domains: (1) protein and RNA bioengineering using RNA editing to reprogram multiple codons to incorporate several small fluorescent dyes with amino-acid precision into endogenous proteins; (2) innovative dye chemistry for developing dual-fluorogenic dyes for high signal-to-noise live-cell imaging; and (3) advanced super-resolution microscopy, to continuously track multiple stably emitting dyes at very high temporal and nanometer spatial resolution. Benchmark applications include the study of highly dynamic large proteins for which conformational dynamics are critical but poorly understood and not accessible with any other technology. By capturing "molecular action movies" of proteins at work, MShapeM will blend the boundaries between structural and live-cell imaging, affording unprecedented visual acuity on protein function in its native environment.
IMB warmly congratulates Edward on his outstanding achievement, and we look forward to hearing more about the advancements of MShapeM in the coming years.
Further details
Further information can be found at https://erc.europa.eu/news-events/news/erc-2025-advanced-grants-results
Edward Lemke is an Adjunct Director at the Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB) and a Professor of Synthetic Biophysics at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. Further information about research in the Lemke lab can be found at www.imb.de/lemke.
About the Institute of Molecular Biology gGmbH
The Institute of Molecular Biology gGmbH (IMB) is a centre of excellence in the life sciences that was established in 2011 on the campus of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU). Research at IMB focuses on the cutting-edge fields of epigenetics, genome stability, ageing and RNA biology. The institute is a prime example of successful collaboration between a private foundation and government: The Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation has committed 154 million euros to be disbursed from 2009 until 2027 to cover the operating costs of research at IMB. The State of Rhineland-Palatinate has provided approximately 50 million euros for the construction of a state-of-the-art building and is giving a further 52 million in core funding from 2020 until 2027. For more information about IMB, please visit: www.imb.de.
About Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) is a globally recognized research-driven university with around 31,000 students from over 120 nations. Its core research areas are in particle and hadron physics, the materials sciences, and translational medicine. JGU's success in Germany's Excellence Strategy program has confirmed its academic excellence: In 2018, the research network PRISMA+ (Precision Physics, Fundamental Interactions and Structure of Matter) was recognized as a Cluster of Excellence – building on its forerunner, PRISMA. Moreover, excellent placings in national and international rankings as well as numerous honors and awards demonstrate the research and teaching quality of Mainz-based researchers and academics. Further information at www.uni-mainz.de.
Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation
The Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation is an independent, non-profit organization that is committed to promoting the medical, biological, chemical, and pharmaceutical sciences. It was established in 1977 by Hubertus Liebrecht (1931–1991), a member of the shareholder family of the Boehringer Ingelheim company. Through its funding programmes Exploration Grants, Plus 3, and Rise up!, the Foundation supports excellent scientists during critical stages of their careers. It also endows the prestigious Heinrich Wieland Prize and awards for emerging scientists. Additionally, it funds institutional projects combining AI and biomedicine, such as the AITHYRA institute in Vienna and a new research unit at the Center for Systems Biology in Dresden (BioAI Dresden). Other supported institutions include the Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB) in Mainz and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, both in Germany.
Press contact for further information
Dr Ralf Dahm, Director of Scientific Management
Institute of Molecular Biology gGmbH (IMB), Ackermannweg 4, 55128 Mainz, Germany
Phone: +49 (0) 6131 39 21455, Email: press(at)imb.de