The Jung Foundation for Science and Research announces the 2014 award winners

8The Jung Foundation for Science and Research in Hamburg is announcing the winners of this year’s awards for cutting-edge medicine to the public today.

Hamburg, January 8th 2014. The Ernst Jung Prize for Medicine, worth € 300,000, is being awarded to immunbiologist Professor Thomas Boehm (57) from the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics, Freiburg. The foundation is honoring the scientific lifetime work of Professor Charles Weissmann MD, PhD (82) with the Ernst Jung Gold Medal for Medicine. The internationally renowned molecular biologist is active at the Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Florida, USA. The Ernst Jung Career Advancement Award for Medical Research worth a total of 210,000 Euro will be awarded to Dr. Thomas Schmidt (33), research associate and junior doctor for general, visceral and transplantation surgery at the Heidelberg university hospital.

These three prizes awarded by the Jung Foundation for Science and Research honor cutting-edge medical discoveries and support projects which help push forward medical advancements and the development of new forms of treatment.

Worth a total of €300,000 Euro, the Ernst Jung Prize for Medicine is one of Europe’s most highly-valued medical awards. The foundation was established in 1967 and has been handing out awards in support of research projects headed by top scientists since 1976.

The foundation made the decision to introduce the Ernst Jung Gold Medal for Medicine in 1990. It is designed to honor the largely completed life work of researchers whose work has helped give rise to new therapeutic innovations. A prize with special symbolic power – but not only that: together with the medal, the winner is given control over a scholarship, which they may award to an aspiring scientist of their choice. A scholarship currently worth a total of 30,000 Euro is made available for this purpose.

The Ernst Jung Career Advancement Award is also one of Europe’s leading medical prizes in its category. It will be awarded for the ninth time in 2014 and aims to strengthen Germany as a location for the sciences. It enables highly-qualified emerging German medical professionals who are active abroad to return to Germany and continue their research projects or conduct more intensive research there.