Medicine

As in previous years, the annual research days in 2011 and 2012 were a highlight for doctoral students. Among the winners of the poster prize, Timo Wirth was awarded the presentation prize for his project “Repeated recall of behaviourally conditioned immunosuppression in rodents and humans”. In 2012 Susanne Mertins was honoured for her presentation on “The role of vascular wall-resident progenitor cells in tumour vascularisation”. Dr. Alexandra Dumitru, investigating the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the protumoral effects of neutrophils on squamous cell carcinoma, was awarded a postgraduate scholarship endowed with 8000 euros by the ­Novartis Foundation for Therapeutic Research in 2011. The following year, the same scholarship went to Junior Professor Johannes Schulte for his work on “Targeted Therapies for Neuroblastoma”.
Among the numerous distinctions received by researchers of the Medical Faculty, some are especially prestigious, such as the Federal Cross of Merit for Professor Gerd Heusch, the “Mendjisky de Cristal” for Professor Wolfgang Sauerwein, the Röntgen Medal for Professor Andreas Bockisch, the Franz-Koelsch Medal for Professor Albert Rettenmeier, and the Juillard Award for Professor Peter Horn. One special distinction is the election of Professor Stefan Lang and Professor Andreas Bockisch to the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Highly endowed research prizes were awarded to Heisenberg Professor Sigrid Elsenbruch-Harnisch (Oskar Medizin Prize), PD Dr. Thomas Schlosser (Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen Prize), Dr. Hedwig Roggendorf (Hufeland Prize), Dr. Iris Helfrich (Award for Innovative Research in Melanoma) and Dr. Anke Hinney (August Homburger Prize).