Graz-born Biochemist Rudolf Zechner has just been elected to the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Zechner’s research work is concerned with the process known as lipolysis, the breakdown of fats by enzymes. His discovery of the enzyme ATGL (adipose triglyceride lipase) in 2004 has made a significant contribution to the understanding of this process. This year the National Academy of Sciences has elected 99 new Members and 25 Foreign Associates, including Zechner. Zechner is not the only Austrian researcher amongst them – the Innsbruck quantum physicist Rainer Blatt has also been made a Foreign Associate member of the NAS. This brings the number of Austrian members of the prestigious US science institution to six.
Rudolf Zechner, who is also the head of the research network “BioTechMed-Graz”, has already won a number of significant awards. These include the Wittgenstein Award (2007), an ERC Advanced Grant (2013), the Louis Jeantet Prize for Medicine (2015) and the Rolf Luft Award for research into the metabolism and diabetes (2018).
Further information:
„How can we come to grips with obesity?“: Rudolf Zechner's research on a sedcard