Klung Wilhelmy Science Award for Philipp Kukura
Chemist from the University of Oxford to receive the award at Freie Universität Berlin on November 22, 2018
№ 261/2018 from Oct 06, 2018
The chemistry professor Philipp Kukura will receive the 2018 Klung Wilhelmy Science Award. A researcher at the University of Oxford, Kukura is being recognized for his pioneering work on the development and application of imaging methods on the visualization and characterization of individual biomolecules. The prize, worth 60,000 euros, will be awarded on Thursday, November 22, 2018, in the Henry Ford Building at Freie Universität. The Klung Wilhelmy Science Award is presented under the patronage of the German Federal Minister for Education and Research, Anja Karliczek, who will give a few words of welcome. The introductory lecture will be given by the professor of medicine Martin Lohse from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine Berlin. Vahid Sandoghdar, a professor of physics at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Erlangen, will give the laudatory speech. The event is public, and admission is free. Registration online is requested by November 16: www.klung-wilhelmy-wissenschafts-preis.de.
Philipp Kukura grew up in Hamburg and studied chemistry at the University of Oxford and the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a Ph.D. in 2006. Following four years as a postdoctoral researcher with Professor Vahid Sandoghdar at Eidgenössischen Technischen Hochschule (ETH) Zürich, Kukura returned to the University of Oxford as an EPSRC Career Acceleration Fellow. In 2016 he was appointed a professor of chemistry there. Kukura has received numerous awards, including the Harrison Meldola Medal, the Marlow Award der Royal Society of Chemistry, the Young Investigator Award, a medal from the European Biophysical Society, and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. In 2018 he was one of the finalists of the UK Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists. Kukura leads an interdisciplinary research group, partly funded by an ERC Starting Grant, whose members develop and apply optical methods to study biological molecules. He is the founder and director of Arago Biosciences, a start-up founded in 2018, which enables the development and characterization of new pharmaceutical agents and diagnostic tools by applying these optical methods in the life sciences.
The Klung Wilhelmy Science Prize honors leading young researchers. It is awarded in cooperation between the Otto Klung Foundation at Freie Universität Berlin and the Dr. Wilhelmy Foundation. In alternating years it goes to a chemist or a physicist respectively. Five of the previous winners later went on to win a Nobel Prize – physicists Theodor W. Hänsch, Gerd K. Binnig, Horst L. Störmer, and Johann Georg Bednorz and the chemist Hartmut Michel. Other winners were later honored with various major national and international awards.
Time and Location
- Thursday, November 22, 2018, 5 p.m.
- Freie Universität Berlin, Henry Ford Building, Garystraße 35, 14195 Berlin; subway station: Freie Universität/Thielplatz (U3)