The Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences has selected Manu Hegde, LMB Group Leader and Joint Head of the Cell Biology Division, to deliver the 2026 Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer Award Lecture. The award has been given since 2004 in recognition of outstanding scientific achievements and is named in honour of Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer, an interdisciplinary researcher who combined physical and chemical approaches to study topics including deuterium-enriched water, nerve models and membrane potentials. In addition to a lecture at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences, the recipient is given a commemorative medal.
Manu has been a Group Leader in the LMB’s Cell Biology Division since 2011. His group seeks to ascertain how membrane proteins are produced within cells, a fundamental process that is necessary for the life of all organisms. In recent years, his group has spearheaded several breakthroughs in this field, identifying new factors and mechanisms which govern the targeting, membrane insertion and folding of membrane proteins.
In parallel, Manu’s group also leads investigations into quality control mechanisms, to better understand how cells identify and eliminate erroneous protein products. To this end, his group has discovered factors that find and degrade unassembled ‘orphan’ subunits of protein complexes, providing new insights into the mechanisms of cell health.
Manu’s career began with a PhD and then an MD at the University of California, San Francisco. He established his independent research group at the US National Institutes of Health in 2000. His work has previously been recognised with the Feldberg Foundation Prize for Anglo-German scientific exchange and the Eduard Buchner Prize from the German Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. In 2013, he was elected a member of EMBO, in 2016, a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 2026, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge.
Manu will deliver the Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer Award Lecture on Thursday 29th October at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences in Göttingen, Germany.
