In recognition of their pioneering research, the NOMIS Foundation presented the 2024 NOMIS Distinguished Scientist and Scholar Award to Andrea Ablasser (EPFL), Elena Conti (Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry), and Whitney Davis (UC Berkeley) at a ceremony held on Oct. 17 at the Kunsthaus in Zurich, Switzerland.

The NOMIS Award recognizes these scientists and scholars for their outstanding contributions to the advancement of science and human progress through their groundbreaking, innovative and collaborative research and will enable them to continue forging new academic paths.

2024 NOMIS Awardee Andrea Ablasser

“From an early age, I’ve had a natural inclination to understand how things work. This intrinsic desire to decode the mysteries of the human body and mechanisms of disease have led me to study medicine. Today the potential to contribute to medical progress and make a positive impact through new discoveries also motivates me. Knowing that curiosity-driven biomedical research can lead to real-world therapies and improvements for patients fuels my desire to explore more.”
— Andrea Ablasser

Andrea Ablasser is full professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland.

Ablasser’s research has revolutionized our understanding of innate immunity, playing a significant role in elucidating how cells respond to intracellular DNA as a signal of infection via the cGAS-STING pathway, a fundamental mechanism of immunity. She also identified cyclic GMP-AMP (cGAMP) as a second messenger in the immune response. In addition, Ablasser demonstrated that aberrant activation of the cGAS-STING pathway can lead to chronic inflammation and autoimmunity, illuminating the processes that contribute to disease.

2024 NOMIS Awardee Elena Conti

“I am fascinated by seeing the invisible. Our cells are like a factory full of incredible molecular machines that perform essential tasks for cellular function. Molecular machines are mind-blowingly tiny — intricately assembled at the nanometer scale by the precise arrangement of thousands and thousands of atoms, which are invisible to the unaided eye. Yet, we can use physical approaches to unravel their atomic structure. This is what fuels my curiosity — understanding how our molecular machines execute their biological functions at the chemical level.”
— Elena Conti

Elena Conti is director of the Department of Structural Cell Biology at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Munich, Germany, and honorary professor for the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich.

Conti and her research group have determined the structures and mechanisms of approximately 100 macromolecular proteins and complexes, ranging in complexity from lower to higher eukaryotes. She has illuminated the assembly of “productive” complexes on mRNAs, such as the exon junction complex and the polyA tail ribonucleoprotein complex, and of “destructive” complexes that act to degrade mRNAs. Conti’s research represents a major breakthrough in the field, as a paradigm for the direct coordination of distinct macromolecular machines in gene expression.

2024 NOMIS Awardee Whitney Davis

“When I was very young, visits to art and natural history museums sparked my interests in archaeology, history and visual art. Later, I had the opportunity to work with research scholars in those fields, who opened my eyes to many unanswered questions. What was most inspiring, however, was my own observation — often sudden and unexpected — of unnoticed yet significant details in well-known works of historical art, as if truly seeing them for the first time!”
— Whitney Davis

Whitney Davis is professor of the Graduate School in the History of Art department at the University of California, Berkeley, US, and honorary professor of art history at the University of York, UK.

A leading art historian, Davis’ scholarship has vastly contributed to our knowledge of prehistoric and ancient arts, including worldwide rock art, ancient Egyptian and Greco–Roman arts, the Classical tradition in Western art (especially in Britain), and the development of modern art history in relation to archaeology, anthropology and philosophy. Most recently, he has explored analytic models and historical reconstructions of the generation and dissemination of visual culture and of the spatial and temporal resolution at which pictures become visually meaningful.

Award ceremony: Fostering connections

The NOMIS Award ceremony serves not only to pay tribute to pioneering scientists, but also to bring together researchers with rich and diverse academic backgrounds, providing an opportunity for engagement across disciplines and fostering new connections. Established in 2016, the NOMIS Distinguished Scientist and Scholar Award has enabled the growth of a unique network of outstanding scientists from around the world, many of whom attended this year’s ceremony, along with other members of the scientific community, including representatives of world-class research institutes, research benefactors and NOMIS partners.

Insight lectures: Creating a spark in science

In conjunction with the annual NOMIS Award ceremony, the new awardees presented their research at the NOMIS Insight lectures at the Kunsthaus in Zurich on Oct. 16. The lectures further foster cross-disciplinary discussions, knowledge sharing, and connections among not only the scientific community but also the public, illuminating the pioneering foundational research that is “creating a spark” in the world of science.

This year’s keynote address was held by 2017 NOMIS Awardee and 2022 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine Svante Pääbo, who shared insights garnered from his research into what sets humans apart from other organisms. Pääbo explained, “Neandertals are the closest evolutionary relatives to everyone on the planet today. If we want to define ourselves from a biological or genetic perspective as a group, it’s them we should compare ourselves to and say, how are we different from them? How are we similar to them?”

Andrea Ablasser presented the insights and new questions that inspired her NOMIS-supported project, Exploring Innate Immune (In)activities. The NOMIS Award is enabling Ablasser to elucidate the rules that govern the functioning of innate immunity and to establish the landscape of the regulatory, evolutionary and therapeutic potential of immune signaling pathways, which influence not only disease but also aging.

Likewise, Elena Conti shared the research and breakthroughs that led to her NOMIS-supported project, Visualizing the Messenger: Deciphering the Architecture of Neuronal mRNA Particles at the Atomic Level. The NOMIS Award is enabling Conti to investigate the structure and biochemical nature of messenger ribonucleoproteins (mRNPs) in the brain throughout the mRNA life cycle and to provide insights into how mutations in mRNP components lead to neurological diseases.

Whitney Davis also introduced his groundbreaking scholarship and questions, which form the basis of his NOMIS-supported project, Depictured Worlds: The Perceptual Power of Pictures. The NOMIS Award is enabling Davis to explore how human beings’ experience of pictures, such as individual artworks or cultural styles of pictorial representation, shapes the ways in which people see the natural and social world beyond pictures. Understanding this experience has the potential to impact fields ranging from education and clinical psychology to social behavior and ethics.

NOMIS Foundation

The NOMIS Foundation supports and enables insight-driven science across all disciplines, focusing on researchers who put forth bold new ideas, exhibit a pioneering spirit and seek to inspire the world around them. NOMIS’ vision is to “create a spark” in the world of science by enabling and supporting pioneering research in the natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities that benefits humankind and our planet.