Rob Goldbach Virology MSc thesis prize

Joyce van Bree (one of the One Health PACT, PhD candidates) has been awarded with the Rob Goldbach Virology MSc thesis prize 2020.
This prize is handed out every two years for the best master thesis delivered for examination at the Laboratory of Virology in Wageningen. Joyce fully deserves this prize based on an excellent thesis. She identified a number of antiviral mosquito proteins that bound to a highly-structured RNA molecule derived from the West Nile and ZIKA virus genome. This RNA structure is required for efficient transmission of these viruses by mosquitoes.

Her results were published in a recent paper, on which she was the second author, quite an achievement for a master student. Her thesis supervisors were Giel Göertz and Gorben Pijlman.

Joyce has recently started her PhD study, as part of the One Health PACT, in the Laboratory of Virology. For more information on this prize and the other activities of the Rob Goldbach Fund please visit the WUR website