The paper “A molecular pore spans the double membrane of the coronavirus replication organelle” by Georg Wolff et al., which was published in Science last year, has received the prestigious EMS-Outstanding Paper Award for 2020 in the category “Life Sciences”. This award is granted annually by the European Microscopy Society to an outstanding paper based on its quality, impact, originality and relevance to microscopy.
The paper received the unanimous vote of the jury. In their report, the jury highlighted “the use of cryo-electron tomography as a tool to find a structure in a de novo way” as “outstanding, as there have been no or few attempts with cryo-electron tomography to find and determine de novo structures”. Furthermore, they underlined that “the discovery of this pore has significant implications for the future design of drugs to combat Covid 19 disease and is of paramount importance to public health in these days”.
This is already the third award this work has received. The prize is 1000 euros and will be presented during the EMS General Assembly at the MC2021 conference in August.