American scientists receive the 2021 Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize
FRANKFURT am MAIN. Two American scientists, Bonnie L. Bassler and Michael R. Silverman, receive the 2021 Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize, which is endowed with 120,000 €.
Bassler is Professor at Princeton University and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, Michael R. Silverman is Emeritus Professor of the Agouron Institute in La Jolla.
The two researchers are honoured for their ground-breaking discoveries concerning bacterial quorum sensing , which refers to sophisticated systems of cell-to-cell communication that bacteria use to coordinate group behaviors.
The award ceremony in St. Paul s Church, which is traditionally held on March 14, Paul Ehrlich s birthday, has been postponed due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Instead, Bassler and Silverman will receive the award at the ceremony in 2022.
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Frankfurt am Main. Developmental biologist Professor Elvira Mass, Ph.D. from the Life and Medical Sciences Institute (LIMES) at the University of Bonn, receives the 2021 Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize for Young Researchers, which is endowed with €60,000. The award ceremony in Paulskirche, which is traditionally held on March 14th, Paul Ehrlich s birthday, has been canceled this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Elvira Mass will be honored next year together with the award winners of 2022.
For organs to stay healthy and functional, they must be constantly surveilled for abnormalities. Until a few years ago, it was believed that this task is performed by immune cells originating from the bone marrow. In a series of elegant genetic labelling experiments, Mass has shown that these cells are mainly yolk sac-derived progenitor cells that migrate to the developing organs, where they immediately differentiate and self-maintain for a lifetime. The reason for their