2015 Winner: Monika Zwerger.

We are pleased to announce that the winner of the 2015 JCS prize is Monika Zwerger for her paper entitled ‘Altering lamina assembly reveals lamina-dependent and -independent functions for A-type lamins’ (Zwerger et al., 2015). The prize, $1000, is awarded annually to a junior researcher who is the first author of the paper that is judged by the Editors and Editorial Board to be the best eligible paper published in Journal of Cell Science that year. To be considered for the prize, the first author must be a student or a postdoc of no more than five years’ standing. Monika studied Biology at Heidelberg University with focus on Cell and Molecular Biology. As part of her curricular practical training she worked with Harald Herrmann – an expert in the intermediate filament field – and decided to join his laboratory at the German Cancer Research Center for her PhD studies. There, she focused her research on the nuclear envelope, the nuclear lamina and, specifically, on the lamin B receptor (LBR), a membrane protein interacting with B-type lamins. She demonstrated that, in cultured cells, mutations in LBR can cause major structural defects in the organization of the nuclear envelope and the endoplasmic reticulum (Zwerger et al., 2010). During a three-month research stay at Bowdoin College in the laboratory of Donald and Ada Olins (University of New England, College of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Portland, ME) and in a collaboration with Peter Gaines (Biological Science, Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology Program, UMass Lowell, MA), Monika investigated the role of LBR in granulocyte maturation in mice. Her research revealed that LBR has a crucial role in correct granulocyte nuclear differentiation – absence of LBR interferes with nuclear lobulation (a main hallmark of mature granulocytes), differentiation-dependent changes in nuclear envelope composition and with heterochromatin tethering to the nuclear envelope (Zwerger et al., 2008). For her postdoctoral studies, Monika joined the laboratory of Jan Lammerding at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital/ Harvard Medical School in Boston, where she expanded her methodological spectrum. She focused on biomechanical studies and characterized the effects of lamins and lamin mutations on lamin assembly and nuclear mechanical properties. She found that mutations that cause muscular dystrophies but not lipodystrophies cause nuclei to be more deformable and fragile, indicating that the disease phenotype of myopathies can, in part, be caused by mechanical weakening of the nuclear envelope. This might render cells more susceptible to damage and rupture during mechanical stress, such as muscle activity (Zwerger et al., 2013). Monika’s studies also emphasized the importance of understanding lamin structure, assembly and the lamina organization in order to interpret observations in laminopathic cells. Therefore, Monika continued her postdoctoral studies in the laboratory of Ohad Medalia (University of Zurich, Department of Biochemistry, Switzerland), which offered exceptional expertise in the structural analysis of proteins by cryo-electron microscopy and tomography. Here, she made use of a tool initially designed to assist crystallography, namely the designed ankyrin repeat protein (DARPin) technology. In a collaboration with the group of Markus Grütter (University of Zurich, Department of Biochemistry, Switzerland), she selected DARPins that specifically bind to A-type lamins and further identified those DARPins that interfere with lamin assembly in vitro or in vivo. So far, the insolubility of lamins represented a major obstacle for determining lamin structure and investigating lamin assembly in vivo. DARPin assembly inhibitors, therefore, represent a powerful novel tool to study structural and functional aspects of lamins. By using DARPins, Monika identified the role of lamin assembly for distinct lamin functions, including nuclear morphology, nuclear stiffness as well as proliferation (Zwerger et al., 2015). Ongoing studies utilize DARPins to isolate native, unassembled lamins from cells for structural analyses. Currently, Monika is nearing completion of her postdoctoral studies at the University of Zurich and is envisaging a transition from basic research towards research and scientific management. Monika Zwerger