Hella Bühler Prize Awards for Two Young Cancer Researchers
Press Release No. 37/2022
13 May 2022
Sergio P. Acebrón and Lukas Bunse each to receive the Hella Bühler Prize worth 100,000 euros
The two scientists Dr Sergio P. Acebrón and Dr Dr Lukas Bunse are each to be awarded the Hella Bühler Prize. The award, which comes with prize money totalling 100,000 euros, goes to young researchers from Heidelberg University who have already attracted attention by the outstanding scientific quality of their cancer research. Life scientist Sergio P. Acebrón (prize-winner in 2021) will be recognised for his research on signalling processes. Neurologist Lukas Bunse (prize-winner in 2019) does research in the field of brain tumour immunology. The prize money will enable the researchers to deepen their research projects. After a break due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Heidelberg University will host an award ceremony on 17 May 2022 with Prof. Dr Bernhard Eitel, Rector of Ruperto Carola, presenting the prizes.
In 2008, Sergio P. Acebrón earned his doctorate at the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao (Spain) with a thesis on protein disaggregation. From 2009 he did post-doctoral research at the German Cancer Research Center, and in 2017 transferred to the Centre for Organismal Studies of Heidelberg University. With his team he investigates signalling processes, which play a key role in maintaining the functions and genetic information of each cell. Defects in these processes can lead to misregulations of stem cells and ultimately to contracting cancerous diseases.
Lukas Bunse studied medicine at Heidelberg University and University College London (UK). He submitted his medical doctoral thesis to Ruperto Carola on certain spontaneous immune responses from glioma patients. Then he worked as a post-doc in the Department of Neurology of Heidelberg University Hospital. In parallel he engaged in research at the Faculty of Biosciences of Heidelberg University and also at the German Cancer Research Center. There he started another doctoral thesis in biology, which he completed in 2020. Since 2019 Dr Bunse has worked at the Neurological Department of the University Hospital Mannheim. As a research group leader he investigates brain tumour-typical mechanisms of immune resistance in order to develop new approaches for combined immunotherapies.
At the award ceremony, tribute will be paid to the research projects of the two prize-winners. The laudatory address for Dr Bunse will be given by Prof. Dr Michael Platten, head of the Neurological Department of the University Hospital Mannheim and director of the Clinical Cooperation Unit Neuroimmunology and Brain Tumor Immunology at the German Cancer Research Center. Prof. Dr Jan Lohmann, Executive Director of the Centre for Organismal Studies at Heidelberg University, will give an appreciative appraisal of Dr Sergio P. Acebrón’s work. After each address, the two Hella Bühler prize-winners will explain the subject of their current research.
The research prize donated by the Heidelberg dentist Dr Hella Bühler (1910 to 2002) aims to support young researchers at Heidelberg University in continuing and deepening their already outstanding achievements in the field of cancer research. Granted by the university, it is one of the most highly endowed awards in the field of cancer research in Germany.
Newsrooms please note:
The award ceremony is not open to the public. It will take place in the Marsilius Arcades, Im Neuenheimer Feld 130.1, and begin at 5.30 pm. Representatives of the media are warmly invited to attend the prize-giving and to let presse@rektorat.uni-heidelberg.de know in advance.