Schering Stiftung

Prize winner 

Bonnie L. Bassler - Ernst Schering Prize 2018

Bonnie L. Bassler - Ernst Schering Prize 2018
Photo: Zach Donnell

Photo: Bonnie L. Bassler

Bonnie L. Bassler

Ernst Schering Prize 2018

Bonnie L. Bassler

Ernst Schering Prize 2018


Professor Bonnie L. Bassler, PhD, has paved the way for a new, important research field in microbiology: intercellular bacterial communication, or so-called quorum sensing. Professor Bassler is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and the Chair of the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University, New Jersey, USA. She described the universal use of chemical communication among bacteria leading to a new paradigm of bacteria as interacting organisms.

For her outstanding research, Prof. Bonnie L. Bassler is awarded this year’s Ernst Schering Prize. She was nominated for the Ernst Schering Prize by Prof. Dr. Ned Wingreen, a professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and the Lewis-Sigler Institute at Princeton University. “Bonnie Bassler‘s groundbreaking basic research on bacterial communication spans biology, chemistry, and medicine – establishing a paradigm for brilliantly integrated science. She has been a leader throughout her career in establishing a dialogue between scientists and the greater society, and she does all this with a contagious enthusiasm for the rigorous practice and communication of science that spreads to all those around her. As one who has benefited from the energy and inspiration that radiates from her, I am personally thrilled and gratified that Bonnie Bassler is the newest recipient of the Ernst Schering Prize,” says Wingreen.

Prof. Dr. Kai Papenfort, head of the RNA-Microbiology group at LMU Munich and former postdoc of Bonnie Bassler, who will give the presentation speech at the award ceremony, says about Professor Bassler: “Bonnie Bassler’s research has revolutionized the study of microbiology and transformed the way in which we consider bacteria and the profound importance of their interactions in nature. Her discoveries pave the way to biological solutions to the world’s most pressing problems: food, health, energy, and the environment.”

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Side events 

Lecture to high-school students: How Bacteria Talk to Each Other

September 27, 2018
Bonnie L. Bassler

Schulfarm Insel Scharfenberg, Berlin-Tegel (not open to the public)

Scientific lecture: Bacterial Quorum Sensing and Its Control

September 27, 2018, 4–5:30 p.m.
Bonnie L. Bassler

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Campus North | Building 4 (Ostertaghaus)
Philippstr. 13 | 10115 Berlin
This public lecture is aimed at scientists and students and will be in English. | Registration is not required.

Laudation 

“Bonnie Bassler’s research has revolutionized the study of microbiology and transformed the way in which we consider bacteria and the profound importance of their interactions in nature. Her discoveries pave the way to biological solutions to the world’s most pressing problems: food, health, energy, and the environment.”

Prof. Dr. Kai Papenfort, head of the RNA-Microbiology group at LMU Munich

Media library

Gallery — September 24, 2018

Ernst Schering and Friedmund Neumann Prize

Award Ceremony 2018

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Publication — September 12, 2018

The Language of Bacteria

Quorum Sensing

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Award Ceremony 2018 

Award ceremony — September 26, 2018

Schering Stiftung awards Ernst Schering Prize to Bonnie Bassler for her pioneering work on quorum sensing. Alexander Bartelt will be awarded with the Friedmund Neumann Prize for his research work on brown adipose tissue.

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Downloads 

Invitation Card Award Ceremony

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Flyer Public Lecture

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Jury 

Stefan Kaufmann is founding director and director of the Department of Immunology of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin and Professor for Microbiology and Immunology at the Charité University Hospital in Berlin. He received his Ph.D. in biology (“summa cum laude”) from Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz and completed his habilitation in the field of immunology and microbiology at the Freie Universität Berlin in 1981. From 1987 until 1991, he was Professor for Medical Microbiology and Immunology, and from 1991 until 1998, he was Full Professor for Immunology at Ulm University.

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Günter Stock is a german physiologist. He was Professor of Vegetative Physiology in Heidelberg from 1980 to 1983. From 1983 to 2005 he has worked at the Schering AG, from 1989 to 2005 as board member, with responsibility for research and development. From 2006 to 2015 he was the President of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Since 2012 he has been serving as All European Academies (ALLEA) President since 2012. Since 2015 he is the chair of the Executive Board of the Einstein Foundation Berlin.

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Hartmut Michel studied Biochemistry at the Universities of Tübingen and Munich. He completed his doctoral degree at the University of Würzburg in 1977 and habilitated in 1988 at the University of Munich. Since 1987 he is Director at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysics at Frankfurt/Main, where he leads the Department for Molecular Membrane Biology. In 1988, Hartmut Michel was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, together with Johannes Deisenhöfer and Robert Huber, for their investigation of the molecular structure of the photosynthesis reaction center in the rhodopseudomonas viridis bacterium.

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Bernard Meunier is currently Emeritus Director of Research at the Laboratoire de Chimie de Coordination du CNRS, Toulouse, and Distinguished Professor at the Chemistry Department of Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, P. R. China (since 2012). He has been Chair in Technological Innovation Liliane Bettencourt at the Collège de France, Paris (2014–2015), President of the French Academy of Sciences (2015–2016), and President of the CNRS (2004–2006). His main interests in the field of bioinorganic and medicinal chemistry is the design and development of hybrid molecules as antimalarial or anti-schistosomiasis drugs and of new copper-specific chelating agents as potential therapeutic agents for Alzheimer’s disease.

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Fiona Doetsch investigates stem cells in the adult mammalian brain. Elucidating the molecular and cellular pathways underlying their regulation may provide insight into brain repair.

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Carl-Henrik Heldin has, since 1992, been professor in Molecular Cell Biology at Uppsala University, Sweden. Between 1986 and 2017, he was the Branch Director of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Uppsala. Professor Heldin is the chair of the Boards of the Nobel Foundation, the Science for Life Laboratory, and the European Molecular Biology Organization. His research interest is related to the mechanisms of signal transduction by growth regulatory factors, as well as their normal function and role in disease. An important goal is to explore the possible clinical utility of signal transduction antagonists.

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Petra Knaus received her Ph.D. at the Center for Molecular Biology in Heidelberg in 1991. As a Research Fellow and Associate, she did her Postdoctoral Training at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, USA, until 1996. After her return to Germany, she was Junior Group Leader at the Biocenter in Würzburg. There she established her own lab with a focus on BMP receptor biology and signal transduction. In 2004 she became Full Professor for Biochemistry – Signaltransduction at the Institute for Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Freie Universität Berlin. In 2010 she received a W3 Professorship for Biochemistry – Signaltransduction and Regeneration at the Freie Universität Berlin and Charité. The interest of the Knaus lab is to understand the molecular mechanism of BMP signal transduction, and to identify common and distinct mechanistic concepts in different cell and tissue environments.

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