BIF PhD fellowship for Joseph Neos Cruz
The Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds (BIF) selected Joseph Neos Cruz, a student in the Vienna BioCenter PhD program in the lab of Daniel Gerlich at IMBA, for one of the Fonds’ competitive fellowships for PhD students.
Joseph Neos Cruz studied Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at the University of the Philippines Diliman, and then pursued a Master’s degree in Molecular Biology at the Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen, Germany. During his Master’s, Cruz did his thesis at Yale University, USA, where he studied how microexons, small coding regions in some of our genes, are included or excluded from final mRNA transcripts during the splicing process.
After finishing his Master’s degree, Cruz applied to the Vienna BioCenter PhD Program and joined the lab of Daniel Gerlich. “I am very interested in the processes involved in gene regulation, transcription, RNA biology and splicing,” says Cruz. Rightfully, Cruz’s project sits right at the intersection of genome organization and transcription. “Previous studies have shown that genome organization shapes transcription by controlling interactions between promoters and distant regulatory elements,” Cruz explains. His project, however, aims to look at this relationship from another perspective. “The aim of my project is to see to which extent transcription reshapes genome organization. Since our cells package their DNA in a very compact way, I want to understand how transcription processes that demand more space can impact DNA conformation and reorganization.”
In his PhD project, Cruz will take advantage of an automated microfluidics system and fluorescent microscopy technology to label and track genomic regions during the transcription process. “I will label different genomic regions with fluorescent probes and track how genomic reorganization brings them closer or farther apart,” Cruz explains. This technique will allow Cruz to probe the function of different factors involved in genomic reorganization and mRNA splicing, unraveling further details about how these processes work.
“I’m grateful for the support by the Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds, and very excited to join this amazing worldwide community of fellows and alumni,” says Cruz. “The opportunity to network with top-level scientists in my field and others will be a huge step for my career, and hopefully help bring success to our group’s research.”
The Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds (BIF) awards PhD fellowships of 2 to 3.5 years to outstanding junior scientists worldwide who wish to pursue an ambitious PhD project in basic biomedical research in an internationally leading laboratory. The peer-review selection process evaluates the applicant's achievements, as well as the scientific quality of the project and host laboratory. The process is highly competitive, with less than 10 percent of applicants receiving a fellowship.
On top of the monthly stipend, the BIF offers fellows seminars, travel allowances, individual and personal support, and access to a worldwide network of fellows and alumni.