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Home > Prizes > Prize Recipients > Andreas Hochwagen

Andreas Hochwagen

2012 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise Honoree in Biomedical Science

Location

New York, NY

Title

Associate professor, Department of Biology, New York University

Area(s) of Research

The blueprint of chromosome architecture; chromosome behavior during normal meiosis and disease

Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (postdoc); Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna (MS, chemistry)

Country of Birth

Austria

Tags
biomedical science
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Until he was a senior in high school, Austrian native Andreas Hochwagen fully intended to be either a reporter or comic artist. It is thanks to his inspiring teachers and colleagues, he says, that he now finds science to be his “satisfying creative outlet.”

The first in his family to earn an academic degree, Andreas studied biochemistry as an undergraduate. He went on to earn his master’s in chemistry from the Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna, where he discovered that he “had a knack for finding experimental alternatives to make things work.” At IMP he produced, in vitro, the first pure cohesion proteins (rings that link duplicated chromosomes prior to cell division). For his postgraduate studies, Hochwagen joined the lab of Angelika Amon at MIT, where the focus was on meiosis, the cell division that produces sperm and egg cells. His independent research at the lab earned him a nomination for the Whitehead Fellow program and, most recently, an Assistant Professor appointment in the Department of Biology at New York University.

Ultimately, Hochwagen hopes to “define the blueprint of chromosome architecture and predict chromosome behavior during normal meiosis and disease.” When not in the lab, he often can be found encouraging lay audiences and young students to get involved in science, believing that although “many people are fascinated with the processes of nature, it can be difficult to experience scientific research firsthand.” To that end, he participates in outreach programs for underprivileged high school students and teachers, and hosts undergraduate summer students.

Jury Members

2012 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise Honoree in Biomedical Science

Heran Darwin

Associate Professor of Microbiology, New York University School of Medicine

Laurie Dempsey

Senior Editor, Nature Immunology

Peter Palese

Professor and Chair, Microbiology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine

Jan Vilcek

Professor of Microbiology, New York University School of Medicine

Leslie Vosshall

Chemers Family Associate Professor, The Rockefeller University

Nicholas Wade

Science Department, The New York Times

Jedd Wolchok

Director of Immunotherapy, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Tags
biomedical science
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Related Prize Recipients

Angelika Amon

Angelika Amon (1967-2020) receives the Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science for groundbreaking research on the molecular signals that regulate cell growth and division, and how errors in these processes contribute to birth defects and cancer.
Portrait of Angelika Amon

Konrad Hochedlinger

Konrad Hochedlinger is an honoree for the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science.

Songhai Shi

Songhai Shi is an honoree for the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science.
A photo of Songhai Shi in a science lab

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