Veni grant for Dr. Max Fürst

Dr. Max Fürst has been awarded a Veni grant worth EUR 280,000 from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). Fürst, currently a researcher at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (Cambridge), will start his Veni at the Faculty of Science and Engineering in June 2022. He has been appointed as assistant professor in Computational Protein (Re)Design, part of the Groningen Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology Institute (GBB).

Fürst will focus on a new display method that labels proteins with a molecular ‘barcode’ to rapidly identify characteristics of computer-designed proteins. The protein display technology is among the most powerful engineering strategies researchers have devised to equip proteins with useful functions, because it allows rapid testing of millions of variants.

Veni

Together with Vidi and Vici, Veni is part of the NWO Talent Programme. Veni is aimed at excellent researchers who have recently obtained their doctorate. Researchers in the Talent Programme are free to submit their own subject for funding. NWO thus encourages curiosity-driven and innovative research.

In total, the NWO has provided Veni funding to 89 promising early-career researchers from the NWO Domain Science and the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZonMw). In addition to Fürst, six other University of Groningen and University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG) researchers will receive a grant.