Barlow was an elected member of European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), an honorary professor of genetics at the University of Vienna and recipient of the Erwin Schrödinger Prize of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

After her graduation, Barlow took up a PhD position at Warwick University, supervised by Derek Burke, to study the interferon response to virus infections in mouse embryos.

In 1988, Barlow joined the newly founded Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna, where she worked as a group leader until 1996.

The committee which awards the prize worth €5000 once a year consists of seven people, the four scientific directors of the institutes and three additional scientists from various research areas.

The awardees must have performed their PhD studies in one of the institutes and their thesis should have provided insights into a biological mechanism in line with Denise Barlow's scientific interests.