Julia Mahamid received the Carl Zeiss Lecture Prize
Congratulations to Julia Mahamid (EMBL Heidelberg), who was recognized with the Carl Zeiss Lecture Prize at the International Meeting of the German Society for Cell Biology. Julia received this honor for her pioneering contributions in structural biology and the development of new cryo-electron microscopy technologies.
At the meeting, Julia also presented her latest research on lipid droplets (LDs). Her team’s work revealed that LDs, far from being simple liquid stores, can undergo remarkable liquid-crystalline phase transitions, which dynamically reflect cell metabolic states and affect their interactions with other organelles. These structural transitions shape the LD’s surface lipid and protein composition, impacting cellular metabolism and possibly disease processes.
As Principal Investigator of Project P8 in our interdisciplinary FOR 5815 research unit, Julia leads research into how LD structural and compositional changes modulate cellular lipid fluxes and affect physiological and pathological mechanisms. Her lab integrates in-cell cryo-EM, lipidomics, proteomics, chemical biology, and mouse models—in close collaboration with FOR 5815 partners—to answer fundamental questions about LD function in health and disease.