Verleihung des Heinrich-Wieland-Preises 2013
THE AWARD CEREMONY FOR THE HEINRICH WIELAND PRIZE 2013
10 October 2013 Heinrich Wieland Auditorium, LMU Munich
LAUREATE
Professor Tony Kouzarides, PhD, The Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Professor Kouzarides is awarded the Heinrich Wieland Prize 2013 for his pioneering and dogma changing research on chromatin modifications and their role in cancer. As an acclaimed founder of the field, his key discoveries revealed how cells modify chromatin – the genetic material composed of DNA and proteins – and by this regulate which pieces of the genetic information are active. Furthermore, Tony Kouzarides showed that several of these modifications are associated with cancer when not regulated correctly. By targeting them, he is aiming to find new drugs against cancer. One such drug called I-BET has a strong potential against certain kinds of leukaemia and is currently tested in clinical trials.
Tony Kouzarides is a Royal Society Professor at the University of Cambridge and Deputy Director of the Gurdon Institute, Cambridge, UK. He receiced his PhD at the University of Cambridge, worked as a postdoctoral fellow at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and afterwards studied cancer-inducing genes at the NYU Medical Center in New York. In 1989, he returned to Cambridge to lead a research group at the Gurdon Institute. Besides his busy academic career, Tony Kouzarides founded the drug discovery company “Chroma Therapeutics”, the antibody reagent company “Abcam plc.” as well as the Spanish charity “Vencer al Cancer” (Conquer Cancer).
PROGRAMME
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791):
String quartet D-major, KV 575, 1st movement: Allegretto
Members of the Orchestra of Bavarian Physicians*
Opening
Professor Dr. Karl-Peter Hopfner, Dean of the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy, LMU Munich
Laudation
Professor Dr. Wolfgang Baumeister, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Heinrich Wieland Prize
Award Presentation
Christoph Boehringer, Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation
Professor Dr. Wolfgang Baumeister
Laureate Lecture
“Epigenetic regulation of genes and cancer”
Professor Tony Kouzarides, PhD, the Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791):
String quartet D-major, KV 575, 4th movement: Allegretto
Members of the Orchestra of Bavarian Physicians*
Reception
* Franziska van der Helm, 1st Violin; Elise Mayer, 2nd Violin;
Otto-Albrecht Müller, Viola; Edda von Bischofshausen, Cello
HEINRICH WIELAND PRIZE
This international award honours outstanding research on biologically active molecules and systems in the fields of chemistry, biochemistry, and physiology as well as their clinical importance (www.heinrich-wieland-prize.de). The 50,000-euro prize is named after Heinrich Otto Wieland (1877-1957), a Nobel laureate and professor of chemistry at the University of Munich. The Heinrich Wieland Prize has been awarded annually since 1964. Former awardees include Nobel laureates Michael S. Brown, Joseph L. Goldstein, and Bengt Samuelsson as well as the freshly announced Nobel laureate in Medicine James E. Rothman.
Since 2011, the prize is endowed by the Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation, a non-profit organization committed to the promotion of the medical, biological, chemical, and pharmaceutical sciences (www.boehringer-ingelheim-stiftung.de).