Next generation prizes, prizes in individual scientific disciplines or awards for someone’s life’s work – they all mean recognition for individual researchers but also for the environment that has provided support for their achievements. Among the large number of different prizes that were awarded to LOEWE researchers in the course of 2014, four are mentioned here by way of example:

The Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize, which is awarded annually by the German Research Foundation (DFG), is considered the most important distinction for next generation researchers. In 2014 the winners included two LOEWE researchers. Prof. Dr. Eric Bodden (34) from the LOEWE research centre CASED was singled out for his work on the development of safe software. The DFG also paid tribute to Prof. Dr. Wim Decock (31) from the LOEWE research cluster Extrajudicial and Judicial Conflict Resolution for his research into the origins of modern European legal systems in the early modern period. Both were awarded €20,000 in prize money.

With the German Cancer Prize, Professor Dr. Simone Fulda was awarded one of the top distinctions in her field. In the category of “translational research”, she was acknowledged for her research on the molecular mechanisms of programmed cell death. Professor Fulda is as much part of the LOEWE Centre for Cell and Gene Therapy (CGT) as of the LOEWE research clusters Oncogenic Signaling Frankfurt (OSF) and Ubiquitin Networks (Ub-Net). The European Respiratory Society (ERS) distinguished the Giessen-based lung researcher Professor Dr. Werner Seeger, who is the spokesman of the LOEWE research centre Universities of Giessen and Marburg Lung Center (UGMLC) and of the German Center for Lung Research (DZL), for his life’s work: in September he was awarded the ERS Congress Chair Award for his research at the interface between preclinical research and clinical application and the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic concepts.

The specialist journal “Nature Methods” selected a technology developed by Professor Dr. Ernst Stelzer from the LOEWE research cluster Ubiquitin Networks (Ub-Net) and his research team as the Method of the Year. Light sheet fluorescence microscopy (LSFM) makes it possible to take high-resolution, three-dimensional pictures of biological tissue over lengthy time spans. With high-resolution, very rapid cameras and an ever greater computing capacity, the LSFM is now one of the most important tools of developmental biology.