Hector Research Career Development Award Honors Young Researchers on Their Way to a Professorship
Robert Hein, Viola Introini, and Maximilian Dax receive the award
Creating the Future
ProjectsHector Science Award 2025
Focus on Swarm Behavior and Heart Healing – Hector Science Awards Go to Iain Couzin and Stefanie Dimmeler
High-throughput Virus Discovery in Next Generation Sequencing Data
Franziska Klingler – Hector Fellow Ralf Bartenschlager
Anelloviruses are a diverse group of ubiquitous viruses infecting humans and vertebrates. Their contribution to disease development remains elusive. We hypothesize that during lifelong, persistent infection disbalances in the viral community can drive onset and progression of disease, e.g. cancer. We aim at a thorough description of the viral spectrum present in healthy and diseased tissue by high-throughput screening of sequencing data and subsequent identification of viral variants correlated with pathogenesis.
Highly Cited Researchers 2025
Ralf Bartenschlager, Immanuel Bloch, Patrick Cramer, Christoph Klein, and Dylan Nelson among the world’s most cited scientists
Quantum information processing with scalable semiconductor spin-qubit chips
Dominic Barthlott - Hector Fellow Wolfgang Wernsdorfer
Quantum computing has the potential to provide speedups for classical problems such as complex simulation, optimization and cryptography tasks, but requires scalable and reliable qubit technologies. Semiconductor spin qubits combine long coherence times with established industrial fabrication techniques. This project focusses on implementing high-fidelity two-qubit gates, which are then expanded to multi-qubit arrays and quantified by applying quantum information algorithms together with rigorous benchmarking.
Beyond the Cortex: Subcortical Connectivity in Social Cognition
Lorenz Ahle - Hector RCD Awardee Sofie Valk
This project explores how subcortical structures such as the amygdala, thalamus, basal ganglia, cerebellum and hippocampus shape social cognition. Using high-resolution fMRI, diffusion MRI and computational modeling it examines how connections between subcortex and cortex support empathy, perspective taking and emotional regulation.
