4 biologists awarded Germany’s most prestigious scientific award

The German Research Foundation (DFG) announced on December 11 that four leading biologists are among the ten scientists who have been awarded the prestigious Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize for their research.

Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla, Volker Hock, Ana Pombo and Robert Zeisser were selected from among 142 people to receive the 2025 Leibniz Prize for their respective research in cell biology, neuroscience, biochemistry and cancer. They will receive 2.5 million euros, equivalent to about $2.6 million, as prize money.

Apart from biologists, additional awards were given to philosopher and mathematician Hannes Leitgeb; chemist Bettina Valeska Lotsch; physicist Wolfram Pernice; computer scientist Daniel Ruckert; mathematician Angkana Ruland; and theologian Michael Seewald.

Established in 1985, the Leibniz Prize is considered Germany’s most prestigious scientific award and is given to 10 scientists each year. According to the DFG website, the prize aims to “honor outstanding scientists and academics, expand their research opportunities and help them employ particularly qualified early-career researchers.”

As of 2024, 12 previous laureates have subsequently been awarded the Nobel Prize, including Swedish geneticist Svante Pääbo in 2022 for his work on sequencing the Neanderthal genome and German developmental biologist Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard in 1995 for her discoveries on the genetic control of early embryonic development.

Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla, the first of the laureates, is the director of the Institute for Epigenetics and Stem Cells at Helmholtz Munich in Germany. Her work focuses on reprogramming mature cells so that they resemble cells found in early embryos, with the potential to become any type of cell – a feature known as totipotency. This means you can create what Torres-Padilla calls “cells a la carte,” which can be used to develop personalized treatments for particular diseases.

“By reprogramming cells back to totipotency — a very early embryonic state — we are envisioning transformative treatments that range from neurodegenerative diseases to brain injuries and leukemia,” Torres-Padilla said in a statement in response to receiving the prize.

Another prize recipient, Volker Hauck, is the director of the Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Moleculare Pharmacologie research institute in Berlin. He studies how neurons absorb substances from their surroundings that play a fundamental role in shaping the way they communicate with each other and stay healthy.

His team hopes to use this knowledge to develop new therapies for neurological and neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease. Ana Pombo, a professor of biochemistry at Humboldt University of Berlin, has also been recognised for her discoveries relating to the organisation of chromosomes, which are said to have led to a “new understanding of gene regulation and the underlying structures within the cell nucleus”. These discoveries could help explain how some diseases that are sometimes linked to chromosomal abnormalities, such as autism and epilepsy, may arise. Finally, cancer biologist Dr. Robert Zeisser has been awarded the 2025 Leibniz Prize for “his groundbreaking work on the treatment of blood cancers”. Zeisser, who is director and deputy medical director of the Department of Stem Cell Transplantation at the University of Freiburg in Germany, studies how tumours dodge the body’s immune defences, particularly in the case of leukaemia and skin cancer. These scientists will join six other laureates at the official awards ceremony on 19 March 2025, who were honoured for their work in other fields ranging from experimental physics to artificial intelligence.

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