Julia Schaeffer is the recipient of the 2024 Prize for Major Breakthroughs in Biology awarded by the French Académie des Sciences. The award ceremony took place on Tuesday 26th November under the dome of the Institut de France. The prize was awarded in recognition of Julia Schaeffer’s post-doctoral work, which she carried out at the Grenoble Institute of Neurosciences in the teams led by Homaira Nawabi and Stéphane Belin.

Julia Schaeffer’s research focuses on the molecular and cellular mechanisms that govern the ability of neurons to regenerate, or rather their inability to do so in the case of neurons of the adult brain and spinal cord, which are unable to regrow after injury. Her study highlighted the crucial role of the translational complex, responsible for protein synthesis, in neuron regeneration. These results open up a new field of research based on the manipulation of the translational process with the aim of reconnecting neuronal circuits in the lesioned nervous system.

In November 2024, Julia Schaeffer started a research team ‘Local translation in axon regeneration’ at the IBDM to further explore this topic.