William R. Kenan, Jr. Chair and Professor of Biological Sciences Brandt Eichman is the first Vanderbilt faculty member to be awarded the prestigious Royal Society Wolfson Visiting Fellowship.
Jointly funded by the Royal Society and the Wolfson Foundation, the fellowship invites outstanding international researchers to a U.K. university or research institution to foster collaborative connections and enrich global scientific research.
“Brandt Eichman’s selection as a Royal Society Wolfson Visiting Fellow is a remarkable achievement and a proud milestone for Vanderbilt,” said C. Cybele Raver, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs. “As the first Vanderbilt faculty member to receive this honor, he exemplifies the spirit of discovery and global collaboration that defines our research community. His work on DNA repair and genome integrity addresses critical questions in human health, and this fellowship will further amplify his impact through international partnership and innovation.”
Eichman’s fellowship officially began March 15, 2026, and will run until December 15, 2027; he is a visiting fellow at Clare Hall College at the University of Cambridge.
“Receiving a Royal Society Wolfson Visiting Fellowship is an exceptional honor,” Eichman said. “Some of the most significant scientific discoveries have been made by fellows of the Royal Society. I am grateful and humbled to be selected for an award from this prestigious group. The fellowship will enable me to delve into emerging technologies in structural molecular biology that I have been eager to incorporate into my own research. Most importantly, this fellowship will help to cultivate new and ongoing collaborations and to meet interesting scholars in all disciplines from around the world.”
Eichman will continue his Vanderbilt research in the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. His research aims to understand how cells repair and tolerate chemically modified, or “damaged,” DNA during replication. This process ensures faithful duplication of our genome, which contains all the information required for us to develop and function, while also reducing the number of mutations each time a cell divides.
“Understanding the fundamental aspects of DNA repair and genome duplication is important for human health, because these proteins safeguard against cancer and other heritable diseases, and dysfunction or mutations in these proteins can lead to unhealthy cells,” Eichman said. “I hope this research will raise new questions that we don’t even know to ask with our current level of understanding. To me, this is one of the hallmarks of good science—advancing knowledge so new research directions and questions emerge.”
Along with his research endeavors, Eichman will attend conferences and give academic lectures around the U.K. and Europe and participate in Royal Society and University of Cambridge events.
“I am indebted to the members of my laboratory who push the science forward every day and whose work over the years made it possible to apply for this fellowship,” Eichman said. “I am also grateful to my U.K. host Professor Lori Passmore and the members of her laboratory for their hospitality and enthusiasm for my visit. Finally, I am thankful for the colleagues who wrote supporting letters for my fellowship application, and for those colleagues at the Francis Crick Institute and Imperial College London who have also opened their doors to me.”