The ÖAW is Austria’s largest non-university research and science institution. Its mission is to ‘promote science in every way’. Founded in 1847 as a learned society, today the ÖAW has over 760 members and 1,800 employees dedicated to innovative basic research, interdisciplinary exchange of knowledge, and the dissemination of new insights with the aim of contributing to progress in science and society as a whole. Every year, the ÖAW elects new members from all research disciplines for their outstanding contributions to science.

Alwin Köhler is the Scientific Director of the Max Perutz Labs and Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna. His research is focused on the nuclear envelope, the critical boundary that distinguishes prokaryotes from eukaryotes. His group tries to decipher the structure and function of the nuclear envelope from three angles: they study the assembly of nuclear pore complexes, the lipid composition and material properties of the nuclear membrane, and the interaction of the nuclear membrane with the genome.