Best Researcher Award 2025
It is our great pleasure to present the 2025 Best Researcher Award to three PhD candidates: Ying Cai and Bernhard Magerl from sub-project 4 (Cavazza lab), and Matthias Klingler from sub-project 2. This annual honor, selected by the Executive Committee, recognizes outstanding research and commitment to the URPP H2R.
Starting with our duo from sub-project 4: Ying has discovered a critical molecular mechanism where paternal DNA damage triggers embryonic failure. Her findings offer veital insights for both CRISPR genome editing and the improvement of sperm sorting in assisted reproduction. Complementing this work, Bernhard pioneered high-resolution microscopy and machine-learning tools to monitor these early cellular events in real-time. His innovations not only validated Ying’s discovery but are now being applied to human clinical data to improve fertility treatment success.
In sub-project 2, Matthias has represented the URPP at numerous events and international conferences. He recently published a sole-authored study in Advances in Life Course Research, one of the most important sociological and interdisciplinary life course journals. Beyond his individual success, Matthias demonstrated remarkable initiative by launching a cross-team collaboration that successfully integrated a new survey experiment into our CHARLES Wave 2 panel study.
Thank you for your dedication and your outstanding contributions to our research community in 2025!