Christian Münch, group leader at the Institute of Biochemistry II of Goethe University Frankfurt, won the Binder Innovation Prize 2020 awarded by German Society for Cell Biology. It recognizes his groundbreaking work on translation control by stress responses for which he developed novel methodology and that also provided new insight into the biology of SARS-CoV-2.

Research in the Münch group centers on cellular stress responses caused by protein misfolding, disease causing mutations, or infection. They heavily focus on quantitative proteomics to use systems biology approaches to gain insight on the global changes upon stress. In particular, the group developed multiplexed enhanced protein dynamics (mePROD) proteomics to measure changes in protein translation. This approach has helped to study the effects of mTOR inhibition and integrated stress response activation (Klann et al. Mol Cell 2020) and to determine host cell responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection (Bojkova et al. Nature 2020). Additional proteomics and network analyses aided in identifying cellular pathways that crucial for SARS-CoV-2 replication in cells (Klann et al. Mol Cell 2020b).

Christian Münch studied biochemistry in Tübingen and Munich and carried out his PhD work at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge (UK). For his postdoctoral work, he went to Harvard Medical School, funded by an EMBO long-term fellowship. In December 2016, he started his independent group at Goethe University and gained extensive funding from the Emmy Noether Programme (DFG) and an ERC Starting Grant. For his doctoral work, he won the British Neuroscience Association Postgraduate Award 2011 and as a group leader the Johanna Quandt Young Academy Science Funding Award 2018 and the Aventis Foundation Bridge Award 2019.

The Binder Innovation Prize is awarded by the German Society for outstanding cell biological research with a focus on cell culture or the use of cell cultures. It is endowed with 4,000 Euro funded by BINDER GmbH in Tuttlingen.