Professor Dr. Felix A. Rey receives the 2026 Chica and Heinz Schaller Foundation Award for Distinguished Achievements in Virology

The Chica and Heinz Schaller Foundation Award for Distinguished Achievements in Virology is awarded every two years and recognizes outstanding contributions in basic and translational virology at the national and international level. The prize, endowed with 50,000 Euros, was awarded to Professor Felix A. Rey in recognition of his pioneering work in structural virology and his fundamental contributions to the understanding of viral membrane fusion and entry mechanisms.

Born and raised in Argentina, Professor Rey studied physics at the Instituto Balseiro, where he received his Master’s degree in 1981. He then moved to Paris to study biochemistry, where he obtained a second Master’s degree from the Université de Paris-Sud in 1983. He completed his PhD at the same institution in 1988. For his postdoctoral work, he joined the laboratory of Stephen C. Harrison at Harvard University, where he determined the structure of the envelope glycoprotein of the tick-borne encephalitis virus, which was published in Nature in 1995. This work provided the first high-resolution structure of a class II viral fusion glycoprotein and marked a key advance in the field.

In 1995, Professor Rey returned to Paris, where he became a Junior Group Leader and later Director of the Structural Molecular Virology Laboratory. In 2004, he moved to Institut Pasteur, where he became Director of the Virology Department and currently serves as Head of the Structural Virology Unit.

Over the course of his career, Professor Rey has solved numerous structures of viral glycoproteins from a wide range of virus families and characterized their interactions with receptors and antibodies. His work has made major contributions to the understanding of viral membrane fusion and entry mechanisms. In addition, his research has revealed structural and functional relationships between viral and cellular membrane fusion proteins.

As the recipient of the 2026 Chica and Heinz Schaller Foundation Award for Distinguished Achievements in Virology, Professor Rey exemplifies scientific excellence, innovation, and a lasting impact on the field. His pioneering work on viral envelope proteins and membrane fusion has fundamentally shaped our understanding of virus entry, virus-antibody interactions, and the structural basis of infection. At the same time, his research has provided important foundations for the development of antiviral strategies and vaccines and has extended far beyond virology into fundamental questions of cell biology and evolution.

Equally remarkable is his long-standing commitment to the training and mentorship of young scientists. His laboratory is widely recognized as an outstanding training environment and has shaped numerous early-career researchers, many of whom now hold leading positions in virology. In addition, Professor Rey has maintained close ties with the German virology community and contributed important impulses through his long-term engagement in scientific advisory activities.

We are very grateful to Professor Rey for delivering the Chica and Heinz Schaller Foundation Award Lecture and sharing his outstanding scientific insights with the virology community.