Every year, the Vienna BioCenter PhD Symposium brings together life scientists from around the world. In the frame of this year’s symposium, two collaborative projects at the Vienna BioCenter were recognized with the "Out of the Box" Award for proposing highly original research approaches.  

One of these projects, led by Vičič and Haselhofer, aims to develop a modular cell-line system that dramatically reduces the time and effort required to study protein function. By combining genetic “landing pads” with nanobody-based recombinase technology, they hope to quickly swap different modifications onto the same protein—whether fluorescent tags, degradation modules, or activity regulators.  

“It’s like adding a new port to your computer where you can plug in different devices,” Žiga Vičič comments. “Depending on what you connect, you get a different effect on the protein, which helps reveal its function.” 

If successful, this proof-of-concept approach could enable scientists to more easily screen the functions of hundreds of proteins in parallel, speeding up cell-line generation and providing more stable, reproducible, and comparable results. Vičič plans to apply this technology to study how transposon-derived RNAs and proteins interact during early development. 

About the Out of the Box Award 

The Out of the Box Award is presented annually for the most curiosity-driven, high-risk/high-reward experiment, supporting creative and interdisciplinary thinking in science. PhD students of the Vienna BioCenter PhD Program can propose innovative, collaborative projects that take unconventional approaches to solving major technical or biological challenges. 

The 10,000-euro prize supports the awarded project and fosters collaboration across research groups.