Victoria Deneke receives International Zebrafish Society award

Victoria Deneke, postdoctoral researcher in Andrea Pauli’s lab at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP), has been awarded the Chi-Bin Chien Award by the International Zebrafish Society. The award honours early-career scientists who have made exceptional scientific discoveries and meaningful personal contributions to the zebrafish research community.

Victoria Deneke received the International Zebrafish Society award for her groundbreaking work using zebrafish as a model to study the protein complexes involved in fertilisation—specifically, the first contact between egg and sperm, a poorly understood mechanism that lies at the starting point of a new life. Deneke’s research combined Artificial Intelligence-driven structural predictions with direct experimental evidence to reveal how the fertilisation complex assembles. Her findings showed that a lock-and-key mechanism essential for fertilisation is conserved across vertebrates.

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