(Vienna, 01 July 2025) Tibor Harkany, Head of the Department of Molecular Neuroscience at MedUni Vienna's Center for Brain Research, and Christoph Bock, Head of MedUni Vienna's Institute for Artificial Intelligence, have been elected as new members of the European Molecular Biology Organization EMBO. The EMBO is regarded as one of the most important institutions in Europe for molecular biology research.
Tibor Harkany and Christoph Bock were elected as part of the EMBO Membership Election 2025. The election is in recognition of their scientific achievements and their contributions to life science research.
EMBO is a network of over 2,100 leading researchers dedicated to promoting excellence in the life sciences. The aim of the organization is to support researchers at all career stages, promote scientific exchange and create an environment for excellent research in Europe. Membership gives Tibor Harkany and Christoph Bock the opportunity to play an active role in the organization's work, for example by reviewing funding applications, participating in selection committees and panels and nominating future members.
EMBO
The European Molecular Biology Organization is a prestigious scientific organization founded in 1964 and based in Heidelberg, Germany. EMBO has over 2,100 members who are among the leading researchers in the life sciences. EMBO is considered one of the most important institutions in Europe for molecular biology research and plays a central role in building a networked European research area in the life sciences.
Tibor Harkany
Tibor Harkany is Professor of Molecular Neuroscience and Head of the Department of the same name at MedUni Vienna's Center for Brain Research. Prior to this, he was Professor of Neurobiology at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden until 2013 and Professor of Cell Biology at the University of Aberdeen (2007-2013). From 2009-2010, Tibor Harkany was Team Leader at the European Neuroscience Institute at Aberdeen. Prior to this, the Hungarian-born scientist worked as a Senior Scientist and Assistant Professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. From 2002-2004, he completed postdoctoral studies at the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the Karolinska Institute. In 1999, Harkany received his PhD in medicine from Semmelweis University in Budapest (HUN).
Harkany has received numerous awards such as membership in the Academia Europaea (2016), 2018 Elsevier Distinguished Lecture Award, Developmental Neurotoxicology Society (US), CINP Sumitomo/Sunovion Brain Health Basic Research Award (2020), and Wagner-Jauregg Prize of the Austrian Society for Neuropsychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry (2024). In 2016 ("Secret-Cells") and 2020 ("Foodforlife") he received Advanced Grants from the European Research Council, as well as an ERC Proof of Concept Grant in 2022. Since 2024, he has headed the FWF Cluster of Excellence "Neuronal Circuits in Health and Disease", endowed with 21 million euros, to research the role of inhibitory neurons in the development of diseases.
Christoph Bock
Christoph Bock is Professor of Medical Informatics at the Medical University of Vienna, where he heads the Institute for Artificial Intelligence at the Center for Medical Data Science. The trained computer scientist and genome researcher also heads a research group at CeMM (Research Center for Molecular Medicine). He received his PhD from the Max Planck Institute for Informatics, then did postdoctoral research at the Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard and at Harvard University (2008-2011). His work on bioinformatics, machine learning and molecular biology methods serves precision medicine. In 2016 he received an ERC Starting Grant. This was followed in 2020 by an ERC Consolidator Grant; the project focuses on epigenetic regulation in CAR T-cell therapy.