Jiří Friml is head of the Developmental and Cell Biology of Plants research group at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA). The biochemist, cell biologist, and geneticist studied in Brno, Cologne, and Tübingen. He held professorships at the University of Göttingen, the Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie, and Ghent University before joining ISTA in 2012. His numerous scientific awards include two ERC Advanced Grants, which he received in 2017 and 2024. in 2015, he received the Erwin Schrödinger Award of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Friml is currently leading the FWF project “Guanylate Cyclase Activity of TIR1/AFBs Auxin Receptors.”
The research group led by Jiří Friml focuses on the hormone auxin in plants. Plants’ own compounds regulate their growth and environmental adaptation by reacting to external stimuli such as light or temperature. Friml and his team combine methods from cell and developmental biology, genetics, biochemistry, and bioinformatics to explain auxin transport, signaling, cell polarity, and other mechanisms plants use to adapt to their surroundings.
Plants are rooted in place and do not have a nervous system to process information from the environment. As a result, they have developed their own environmental adaptation and survival strategies. Jiří Friml and his team have discovered the plant hormone auxin is the most important and universal signal for information transfer between plant cells. The auxin signaling pathway integrates both endogenous signals and signals from the environment and translates them into a developmental change depending on the cell type. The auxin signal can therefore trigger growth of the roots downwards and the shoots upwards or towards the light, as well as the development of new organs such as flowers and leaves, or can even stop growth altogether.
These findings could be applied to agriculture in the future and make it more efficient and sustainable. For example, the targeted control of the auxin signaling pathway could be used to ensure that crops in the field use their energy for their own growth rather than for mutual competition.
Jury statement: Groundbreaking contributions to cell biology
“Jiří Friml is a pioneer in the field of plant biology, specifically concerning how the phytohormone auxin functions as the major coordinative signal regulating plant growth and development. His work has defined current concepts of how auxin controls the directional growth of plant organs such as roots. His work shapes the current state of research and offers new perspectives in plant biology. By awarding the FWF Wittgenstein Award to Jiří Friml, Austria is honoring one of the most creative researchers in a field in which Austria plays a leading role. He is a driving force in global plant biology,” said the international FWF jury.
The START/Wittgenstein jury consists of 13 top researchers, including two Nobel Prize laureates, Bruce Beutler (physiology/medicine) and Stefan Hell (chemistry). Chair of the jury is Janet Wolff, University of Manchester. Click here for a list of members of the START/Wittgenstein Jury.
FWF Wittgenstein Award: Austria’s most highly endowed science prize
The FWF Wittgenstein Award is granted to outstanding researchers from all disciplines. The award, endowed with €1.7 million, supports the researchers’ work and guarantees them independence and flexibility in implementing their projects, giving them the opportunity to advance their research activities at the highest international level.
