19-May-2022
Sjors Scheres has been presented the Ivano Bertini Award 2022, recognising his achievements in integrated structural biology.
Sjors Scheres is Joint Head of The Division of Structural Studies at MRC Molecular Biology Lab, in Cambridge, UK.
Sjors said, “I am truly honoured and grateful to receive this award by Instruct-ERIC, especially since infrastructure development for structural biology is so close to my heart.”
His work in the field of Cryo-EM, throughout his career, is what has set him apart. He has developed the world-renowned RELION software package, which is based on Bayesian methods, to solve the structures of biological macromolecular assemblies by Cryo-EM. His 3D classification methods have helped to establish more robust ways of sorting conformational states and heterogeneity, which has led to the ability to identify multiple conformation states from Cryo-EM images without the need for a priori knowledge about the structural heterogeneity in the data. Recently, the RELION software has also raised the bar of the resolution achievable for Cryo-EM to about 1.2 Å, and it has over 2,500 citations.
Wolfgang Baumeister, previous holder of the Bertini Award and presenter of the award to Sjors, said, “I am honoured to have been able to present Sjors with the Ivano Bertini Award. His vast experience and achievements in Cryo-EM and software development makes him a more than worthy awardee, and he should be very proud of this achievement.”
Harald Schwalbe, Director of Instruct-ERIC, said "We are delighted that Sjors is this year's Bertini Awardee. His ground-breaking working on fibrillar structure is a clear case for the impact of Integrated Structural Biology."
Stephen Burley, said, "Congratulations to Sjors on his richly deserved award. His work on image processing in Cryo-EM, and subsequent discoveries in amyloids and Alzheimer's makes him an extremely worthy recipient of this prestigious accolade."
Alan Belguise, VP of Academic Markets at award sponsor Bruker BioSpin, said, “Bruker is happy to continue its contribution to the field of Structural Biology by sponsoring the “Ivano Bertini Award”, as the field is undergoing continuous evolution with complementary technologies such as CryoEM, XRays, and NMR, now complemented by Artificial Intelligence.
This year’s prize, going to Dr. Sjors Scheres, illustrates once more the vitality of the field, and the contribution of his research to improving the comprehension at the molecular level of how proteins work.”
Having studied at Utrecht University and worked at the CNB in Madrid before his move to the MRC, Sjors has a rich history with Instruct-ERIC centres. Sjors is a Group leader at MRC-LMB, and is also Joint Head of the Divison of Structural Studies, alongside David Barford.
Sjors commented, “We feel very strongly about how open-source software development accelerates science, and we therefore make all our methods openly available to everyone.”
The Ivano Bertini Award is offered by Instruct to recognise a significant achievement in frontier research that utilises an integrative structural biology approach. The award is an independently reviewed competition and commemorates Ivano Bertini, who developed powerful new methods in NMR and founded CERM in Florence.
The award of €15,000 is endowed by Bruker BioSpin which is at the forefront of NMR instrument development with increasingly broad application and measurement sensitivity.
