Harvard Medical School researcher Dennis Kasper has been named the recipient of the 2024 Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize, Germany’s most prestigious medical award.
This award honors scientists who have made critical contributions in the fields of immunology, cancer research, hematology, microbiology and chemotherapy — areas transformed by the work of Nobel Prize laureate Paul Ehrlich, the German physician-scientist considered one of the founding fathers of immunology and a pioneer in chemotherapy.
The award, which will be presented at a March 14 ceremony in Frankfurt, comes with €120,000 (approximately $130,000).
Kasper, the William Ellery Channing Professor of Medicine at HMS, is being recognized for his transformative contributions to elucidating the mechanisms by which gut microbes interact directly and indirectly with the immune system to ensure its healthy development.
“Dennis Kasper was the first to succeed in uncovering communication channels in the superorganism that humans and their microbiome form,” said Thomas Boehm, chairman of the scientific council of the Paul Ehrlich Foundation. “Through him, we have learned which signals intestinal bacteria use in our immune system to ensure a healthy balance between aggressiveness and dampening of inflammation. This will have far-reaching clinical consequences.”
Adapted from a Goethe University news release.
