Prizes And Awards
Leibniz Award 2012 for MDC Researcher Prof. Rajewsky:
Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Rajewsky from the Max Delbrück Centre for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch has been distinguished with Germany's most highly endowed research award, the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Award. Nikolaus Rajewsky is Professor of Systems Biology at the MDC and at the Charité and is the scientific head of the "Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology" (BIMSB) at the MDC. Systems biology combines molecular biology, biochemistry, mathematics and physics to derive predictive, quantitative models for complex biological systems. In his research, Prof. Rajewsky works on, amongst other things, microRNAs, a group of genes identified as a distinct class only some years ago. He has characterised by experimental and computational techniques the role that microRNAs play in gene regulation, including those genes governing the onset of disease. This was the cornerstone for establishing a significant research area for the discovery of target structures for therapeutic approaches. This is the second time the Leibniz Award goes to the MDC. Prof. Dr Carmen Birchmeier has been awarded this honour in 2002. Endowed with 2.5 million Euro, the Leibniz Award features the largest research grant of all international science awards.
