Catalyst, backbone, mentor

"Quirin joined my lab as a Postdoc supported by his own grant at a time when we had recently relocated to our new institute. From the very beginning, he invested extraordinary personal effort - in addition to his own research - into strengthening our entire lab environment and, in many ways, the institute as a whole. His contributions have consistently been driven by dedication rather than personal gain. He played a key role in several major grant applications that ultimately secured funding for his colleagues rather than himself. With remarkable initiative, he established our new microscopy core facility almost single-handedly (with my institutional support), creating an essential resource now used across our department, several neighboring groups, and collaborators from other institutes. He also took the lead in writing and managing our ethical research licenses, enabling most of the lab’s projects over the past years. On top of this, he assumed numerous administrative responsibilities and handled them with efficiency, reliability, and zero complaints. Quirin has furthermore been deeply committed to teaching and mentorship: he organized our bachelor and PhD practical courses and mentored more than half a dozen Bachelor and Master students, as well as co-mentoring two PhD students. Much of his impact has taken place behind the scenes, work that is crucial yet often goes unnoticed by many people. Therefore, and for his unwavering dedication to the success of everyone around him, Quirin is unquestionably my department’s “lab hero.”"

Nominated by Valery Grinevich, Neuropeptide Research in Psychiatry, Central Institute of Mental Health (ZI) and University of Heidelberg, Germany