Leibniz Prize 2025: Awards for cancer drugs to Catholic peace

Daniel Rückert is a full professor of artificial intelligence in medicine and healthcare. His area of expertise includes imaging techniques, i.e. those that are used to detect discrepancies, for example. This year, Rückert is receiving the Leibniz Prize for his work, which is probably the most important award for scientists in Germany. The prize is awarded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and is endowed with up to 2.5 million euros. He is one of ten prize winners.

According to a press release from the Technical University of Munich (TUM), where he teaches, Rückert has developed "pioneering methods that enable AI algorithms to generate particularly informative images from computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging, analyze them and interpret them for improved medical diagnostics." His work has led to an acceleration of the image acquisition process. As the body is always moving, this is a major difficulty with such images. Thanks to Rückert, there are also new reconstruction methods for CT and MRI images – that improve the images, increasing the possibility of recognizing more of them, which can lead to better diagnosis and treatment. Most recently, the prizewinner has been working on 3D reconstructions using machine learning, which can be used with MRI data.

The Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize is considered the most important research funding prize in Germany. It is intended to honor and promote top researchers. Only universities can nominate researchers, as well as some research institutions and previous prize winners.

The Leibniz Prize 2025 goes to:

Other prize winners include Volker Haucke, who works at the Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie in Berlin. He conducts research in the field of biochemistry and cell biology. His research focuses on the functioning of nerve cells and, through the development of inhibitors, also on the hope of new drugs to combat cancer. Hannes Leitgelb from the LMU Munich has been awarded the field of Theoretical Philosophy. Leitgelb combines mathematics and philosophy; the question is whether it is possible to conduct a philosophical argument as if it were a math problem.

Bettina Valeska Lotsch receives the prize for her work in the field of solid state and materials chemistry at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart. She is looking for innovative materials that can be used for sustainable energy sources. Wolfram Pernice is an experimental physicist and is working on the idea that a computer could function in a similar way to a brain –, i.e. AI. However, his neuronal networks use light instead of electrons. This could reduce the energy consumption of computers.

Ana Pombo, a genome biologist at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin, has developed "methods to map three-dimensional organizations of chromosomal DNA in individual cells". Angkana Rüland, Applied Mathematics, is working on "crystalline microstructures at phase transitions in solids" and medical imaging, according to the DFG.

"Michael Seewald devotes himself to concise, unconventional and creative studies in systematic theology –, particularly in the history and hermeneutics of dogma. With his historically-critically derived and systematically substantiated plea for the mutability of dogmas while retaining tradition, he has succeeded in building a bridge between opposing camps in Catholicism," said the DFG in justifying the award to the theologian.

Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla is an epigeneticist and conducts research into cell plasticity and the adaptability of cells. Her findings provide information about the development of an embryo. According to the DFG, Robert Zeiser from the Freiburg University Medical Center is "known for his pioneering work in the treatment of blood cancer". Thanks to his research, it has already been possible to use an active substance in therapy that can prevent rejection processes after a transplant.

(emw)