German researcher Philipp Heretsch has won first prize in the DSM Science & Technology Awards (South) 2010. An international judging committee chaired by Dr. Manfred Eggersdorfer, Senior Vice President Nutritional Science & Nutrition and Health Advocacy at DSM Nutritional Products, selected Philipp Heretsch, who obtained his doctorate from the Universität Leipzig in Germany for research in the field of preparative organic chemistry.
Philipp Heretsch has pioneered a chemical synthesis route for the naturally occurring active compound cyclopamine, plus more stable and acid resistant derivatives thereof. This research is considered to be a great achievement in the development of more efficient therapeutic actives for cancer treatment. Dr. Heretsch was presented the award by Dr. Eggersdorfer and Mr. Leendert Staal, President and CEO of DSM Nutritional Products on Tuesday, June 23, at an awards event at the Grand Hotel Victoria-Jungfrau in Interlaken (Switzerland). As the winner of the first prize he will also receive a cash prize of EUR 10,000.
The second prize (EUR 5,000) was awarded to Thomas Böttcher of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (Germany) for his Ph.D. research on natural products and their derivatives as molecular probes that allow the identification of their dedicated biological targets in bacterial cells. The third prize (EUR 2,500) went to Grit Kummerlöwe of Technische Universität München (Germany) for her Ph.D. work on the measurement of anisotropic NMR parameters. The other nine finalists will each receive a cash prize of EUR 1,250.
