Lisa Maier receives EMBL Alumni Award

The recipients of the 2026 EMBL Alumni Awards have been selected. Each award includes a prize of €15.000, recognizing exceptional scientific achievement and impact from members of EMBL’s global alumni community.

Lisa Maier receives the 2026 John Kendrew Award

Lisa Maier, who was a postdoc in the Genome Biology Unit at EMBL Heidelberg from 2015 to 2018 in the Typas Group, has received the 2026 John Kendrew Award in recognition of her transformative work on how commonly used drugs affect the human gut microbiota.

The selection committee described Maier as “an exceptional scientist” responsible for “the latest, most interesting discovery on the impact of drugs on the human gut microbiota.” Her work, they noted, has major implications for how drug development and antimicrobial intervention will be approached in the future. In particular, she has demonstrated that drugs in current clinical use can have unexpected effects on gut microbes, has developed strategies to preserve the gut ecosystem while retaining drug efficacy, and has extended these findings to disadvantaged parts of the world.

During her time at EMBL, Lisa Maier pioneered the transition of microbiome research from primarily computational analyzes to systematic experimental approaches. Her 2018 Nature paper provided the first comprehensive map of how marketed drugs directly affect prevalent members of the human gut microbiome. Cited more than 2.000 times, the study has substantially influenced the field and challenged existing drug development pipelines and regulatory policies.

After leaving EMBL, Lisa Maier established her own laboratory at the University of Tübingen, supported by an Emmy Noether Fellowship. Her subsequent work developed proof-of-concept strategies to counteract antibiotic-induced microbiome damage and demonstrated how specific non-antibiotic drugs can disrupt colonisation resistance, increasing infection risk. In 2019, she joined the CMFI as a Junior Research Group Leader. She was appointed as a full professor for Microbiome-Host Interactions in 2022 and has since secured major competitive funding.

The committee also highlighted her active role in shaping the next generation of scientists while widely disseminating her discoveries.

“I’m deeply honoured to receive this year’s John Kendrew Award,” Maier said. “This recognition reflects not only my work but also the dedication of my team and the impressive growth of experimental microbiome science at EMBL – from its early days to the vibrant field it is today. Being part of this journey has shaped how I approach science and lead my lab. I strive to carry EMBL’s spirit of curiosity and collaboration into every project and look forward to advancing the field together with the EMBL community.”

The John Kendrew Award is generously sponsored by Roland Specker.

In parallel, Stephen Cusack receives the 2026 Lennart Philipson Award for his profound contributions to structure-guided drug development against major human pathogens.