Winners of the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize 2019 present their research work

From left to right: Professor Arthur L. Horwich, Professor Klaus Cichutek, Professor Franz-Ulrich Hartl. Source: PEI

Following good tradition, the winners have again accepted the invitation to the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut (PEI), where they will present their award-winning research results to members of staff of the PEI as well as interested members of the public within a scientific colloquium.

For many decades, it was assumed that proteins fold on their own based on their amino acid sequence during protein synthesis, thus building their three-dimensional structure. The two award winners found out that this is not the case: Proteins of all organisms require folding aids – so-called chaperones. They protect the newly formed or unfolded proteins, just like small cages. The proteins are thus enabled to obtain their correct three-dimensional structure. If this process is unsuccessful, this will have disastrous consequences: misfolded and aggregated proteins are characteristics of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease or Parkinson's disease.

The winners of the award, which is worth 120,000 Euro, have contributed to this new knowledge in various ways: Professor Hartl (61), Director at the Max-Planck-Institute for Biochemistry at Munich researched into the folding mechanisms, while Professor Horwich (68), who performs his research at the "Boyer Center for Molecular Medicine" of "Yale School of Medicine", the "Department of Genetics" and the "Howard Hughes Medical Institute", won his merits with his x-ray analysis designed to understand the atomic structures of the molecules.

"Elucidating the mechanisms that lead to misfolding of proteins is essential to find approaches to successful treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson’s disease", said Professor Klaus Cichutek, president of the PEI. "We need these findings to assess new approaches to therapies in biomedicine", as he explains.

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