Prizes & Awards

MDC PhD student Matthias Jürgen Schmitt is being honored with the Curt Meyer Memorial Prize of the Berlin Cancer Society for his achievements in cancer research. He employs molecular reporters to investigate how glioblastoma – the deadliest brain tumor of all – becomes resistant to therapies.

The Berlin-based physician and researcher Kai Schmidt-Ott is investigating the causes of kidney failure and working to develop new methods to better diagnose and treat kidney diseases. The German Society of Nephrology has now recognized his research achievements with the 2021 Franz Volhard Award, which includes a €10,000 cash prize.

Stiftung Charité Foundation and the Berlin Institute of Health at the Charité are continuing their format for recruiting outstanding female scientists. MDC researcher Kathrin de la Rosa is among the four new Johanna Quandt Professors. The immunologist will continue to lead her research group here.

Dr. Ilaria Piazza has received one of the 2021 EMBL Alumni Awards for her groundbreaking work on protein-metabolite interactions. She now heads the MDC’s Allosteric Proteomics Lab – but she says if she hadn’t done her PhD work at EMBL Heidelberg, she would not have chosen science as a career.

Dr. Anton Henssen, a scientist and physician at the ECRC , has received the Young Investigator Award of the 2020 Berliner Wissenschaftspreis for his cutting-edge research into childhood cancers. The award was presented by the Governing Mayor of Berlin at a ceremony on July 22 in front of the Rotes Rathaus.

On June 22, the councilors and officials in the Berlin district of Pankow presented the 2020/21 Pankow Environmental Awards.

Dr. Stefanie Grosswendt develops new methods to analyse cell interaction in embryos and neuroblastoma, an early childhood cancer, at the level of the individual cell. The group leader has received the BSIO Female Independence Award for her research.

Jan Philipp Junker studies how organs develop and how they regenerate after injury. To understand how this happens, he is investigating which genes in individual cells of an organ are active at any one time. Together with a fellow researcher in Dresden, he has been awarded a generous DFG Sequencing Grant for his research.

Daniela Panáková is studying a signaling pathway that is of critical importance for the heart muscle and congenital heart defects. The German Centre for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK) has now awarded her a grant of €80,000 to support this research.

MDC researchers used significantly fewer laboratory animals during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 than in previous years. The MDC has now been awarded the “Exemplary Communications of Animal Research” seal for its transparency on the issue of animal experiments.