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Award by the Bayer Science & Education Foundation
Hansen Family Award for 2011 Goes to Professor Stefan W. Hell
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The winner of the 2011 Hansen Family Award has been decided. The Board of Trustees of the Bayer Science & Education Foundation and the Scientific Committee for this award have presented Professor Stefan W. Hell with the EUR 75,000 prize, which is one of Germany's most prestigious scientific accolades. His breakthroughs in the field of light microscopy provide insights into living cells and tissue that until recently would have been inconceivable. The discoveries made by Professor Hell, who conducts research work at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen and the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, led to a new class of light microscopes that can probe far deeper into the molecular scale of life. The Hansen Family Award is regarded as one of the most prestigious and coveted prizes for natural scientist in Germany. The award will be officially presented by Chairman of the Board of Management of Bayer AG Dr. Marijn Dekkers at a ceremony in Berlin on March 15, 2011.
The Hansen Family Award honors scientists who have made pioneering research contributions in innovative fields of biology and medicine. It has been presented since 2000 in memory of its endower Professor Kurt Hansen. The late former Chairman of the Board of Management and the Supervisory Board of Bayer AG established the award in 1999 out of "gratitude for a fulfilled life as a natural scientist and business manager".
With his invention and development of Stimulated Emission Depletion (STED) microscopy, Hell revolutionized fluorescence microscopy, which plays a key role in biology and fundamental medical research today. The 47-year-old physicist was the first person to find a way of radically overcoming the light microscope's resolution barrier of 200 nanometers as established by Ernst Abbe in 1873. STED microscopy and related processes now enable up to 10 times greater detail in cells, something that was previously deemed impossible. For the first time, structures much finer than 200 nanometers can now be viewed in living cells or tissue. This provides a better understanding of cellular mechanisms and makes it easier to identify the causes of illnesses and diseases.
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Keywords: Award Bayer AG Fluorescence Microscope Life Cell Imaging Light Microscopy STED
Imaging & Microscopy Issue 4 as free epaper or pdf download
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