Award ceremony: 540,000 euros for top researchers
Jung Foundation for Science and Research honours Özlem Türeci, Stefan Rose-John and Achmed Mrestani with highly endowed medicine prizes
Hamburg, May 5, 2023. Yesterday evening, the Jung Foundation for Science and Research awarded its medical prizes, which are among the most highly endowed in Europe. The laureates: Professor Dr med. Dr h.c. mult. Özlem Türeci, Professor Dr rer. nat. Stefan Rose-John and Dr med. Achmed Mrestani were honoured with a total of 540,000 euros for their pioneering research. With personal speeches of thanks, they accepted the awards in front of an invited audience.
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The Jung Foundation for Science and Research presented this year’s medical awards to three renowned researchers on the evening of May 4, 2023: Professor Dr med. Dr h.c. mult. Özlem Türeci received the Jung Prize for Medicine 2023, Professor Dr rer. nat. Stefan Rose-John the Jung Gold Medal for Medicine 2023 and Dr med. Achmed Mrestani the Jung Career Advancement Award 2023. Around 60 invited guests of honour and members of the Jung family followed the award ceremony and speeches of thanks at a festive dinner at the Anglo-German Club on Hamburg’s Außenalster. The awards, worth a total of 540,000 euros, are among the most highly endowed medical prizes in Europe.
Professor Dr med. Dr h.c. mult. Özlem Türeci accepted the Jung Prize for Medicine 2023, the main prize of the Jung Foundation. The trained physician, academic scientist and co-founder of BioNTech was awarded for her groundbreaking research in the field of immunology and mRNA technology. Her contribution to the development of the first approved COVID-19 vaccine and her basic and translational research into potential new personalised treatment options for cancer patients set her apart as a worthy recipient of the award. She received prize money of 300,000 euros.
The Jung Gold Medal for Medicine 2023 was awarded to Professor Dr rer. nat. Stefan Rose-John. Until recently, he conducted research at Christian Albrechts University in Kiel. The medal honours his scientific life’s work on the signalling effect of the cytokine interleukin-6 and the clinical translation of his results into inflammation medicine and oncology. With the prize, he is entitled to award a scholarship of 30,000 euros to a young scientist of his choice.
Dr med. Achmed Mrestani, MD, from the Clinic and Polyclinic for Neurology at the University Hospital Leipzig, received the Jung Career Advancement Award 2023. He is researching the influence of specific point mutations on the development of epilepsy and headache disorders in a cooperation with the Rudolf Schönheimer Institute for Biochemistry at the Medical Faculty of the University of Leipzig. With his award, he will receive funding of 210,000 euros over the next three years.
The Hamburg Jung Foundation for Science and Research awards three prizes for medical research each year. It honours those researchers whose projects offer promising possibilities for new treatment methods. So far, the foundation has invested over 15 million euros to build bridges between research in the laboratory and treatment at the bedside.