We are delighted to announce the recipients of the Outstanding Early Career Researcher Award 2024 from RSC Chemical Biology: a team comprising Kilian Roßmann, Ramona Birke, Joshua Levitz, Ben Jones and led by Johannes Broichhagen.
Their award-winning paper, “Red and far-red cleavable fluorescent dyes for self-labelling enzyme protein tagging and interrogation of GPCR co-internalization“, introduces a chemical toolset that enables new insight into receptor trafficking—specifically the complex internalization of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), a key class of drug targets.
The team developed membrane-impermeable fluorescent probes for self-labelling protein tags (SNAP/Halo), which can be selectively removed from the cell surface using a mild reducing agent (MESNA). This innovation allows researchers to “strip away” uninternalized dye, revealing precise trafficking patterns and uncovering signalling crosstalk between receptors like GLP1R and GIPR.
Their approach spans from high-resolution imaging to high-throughput ligand screening, offering a powerful and versatile method for studying GPCR biology.
About the team:
- Johannes Broichhagen leads a chemical biology group at FMP Berlin, focusing on chromophore photophysics and optical control of cell-surface proteins.
- Kilian Roßmann, who completed his PhD in 2025, specializes in novel imaging techniques.
- Ramona Birke brings deep expertise in molecular cell physiology and mass spectrometry.
- Joshua Levitz, Associate Professor at Weill Cornell, works on optical tools for receptor neuroscience.
- Ben Jones, Clinician Scientist at Imperial College London, focuses on GPCR pharmacology in metabolic disease.
In their words:
“This honour means a great deal to us, highlighting the visibility and impact of our research approach and motivates us for our ongoing scientific work. We would like to extend our special thanks to the editorial and advisory boards of RSC Chemical Biology for recognizing the research results in our manuscript “Red and far-red cleavable fluorescent dyes for self-labelling enzyme protein tagging and interrogation of GPCR co-internalization”. We would like to highlight that this study has been an interdisciplinary collaboration across continents, which shows how important international support and cooperation are to yield maximal scientific success. In particular, Chemical biology is a fascinating field that combines interdisciplinary approaches and opens up new avenues of research, which RSC Chemical Biology covers extraordinarily. We are proud to be able to contribute to the further development of this exciting field, and this award encourages us to continue our journey with curiosity to tackle new questions, gaining unprecedented insights in the intricate world of receptor signalling.”
We are proud to celebrate this outstanding contribution to the field and look forward to what this team uncovers next!
🔗 Read the winners’ paper here!
