THE ENDING of the Werner Risau Prize!

breakingNews

Sad as it is for some of us, the majority of the Werner Risau Prize committee has come to the decision to award the prestigious Werner Risau Prize this year (2023) for the last time. Werner would have turned 70 this year and we are also commemorating the 25th anniversary of his death. In a way this marks a point in the history of this prize which allows for decent and worthy conclusion of the WRP. This was also important to Werner's wife and his family, who always had actively and with many emotions accompanied the awarding ceremony - the evening dinner for the winner, with Werner's family and members of the prize committee has always been an highlight of the WRP! - and they wished to draw a line now, which we as members of the prize committee fully understand and respect.

As for this year's WRP: Get your stuff together and send it in to the same address as last year!

And please, stay tuned - there will be another update on the 2023 WRP deadline following soon!

Andrew Chris Yang is the 2022 winner

Andrew Chris Yang, heading a research group at UCSF in the meantime, finished first place this year! It was a tough choice again with many outstanding, high-impact publications and for most of us in the Werner-Risau-Prize committee the decision who should be elected was really challenging. Andrew won this years prize with a study, in which together with a number of collaborators, he managed to catalogue blood vessels not only from healthy brains (and note: this is not mouse, the pet animal model for so many scientists but human!) but also from brains of people who had died with Alzheimer's disease. They established a map of all the blood vessel types that supply the human brain (the "infrastructure" of brain blood supply) and found out that certain blood vessel cells are lost in brains from donors suffering from Alzheimer's disease. So beside neurons brain blood vessels are affected by this disease and are gaining centre stage.

Re: Annual DGZ Meeting 2022

Due to the still prevailing Corona crisis (I guess), the DGZ has decided to cancel this years´s Annual in personam Meeting again. Thus, the Werner-Risau-Prize will be awarded as before within the settings of a special webinar that is scheduled towards the end of this year. The exact date for this event has still to be announced. So stay tuned!

200w

Werner Risau Prize 2022 - Mind the date!

The application form for the next 2022 Werner Risau Prize award is now ready to be downloaded (see download section). Right now it is not clear when and where it will be awarded and in which format, but it IS available and it WILL BE handed over! Just to make it clear!
It has developed a strong reputation during its history and is still going strong, now into it´s 23rd year. Please, dare to apply, if you have an appealing study just published or in press, and which you are prepared to present to an international audience of dedicated cell biologists - either virtually or in persona. It is definitely worth it! If you are still hesitant - just try to google where some of the previous Werner Risau Prize winners are now advancing their career....
But remember: The application deadline is July 31, 2022! So prepare your paperwork and send it in ASAP!

The Oscar 2021 goes to - Isidora Paredes!

We are happy to announce our this year´s winner of the Werner Risau Prize: Dr. Isodora Paredes from the group of Carmen Ruiz de Almodovar at the European Center for Angiosciences in Heidelberg. The competition was tight again as in previous years, but Dr. Paredes finally succeeded with her work on bidirectional neuronal progenitor to endothelial crosstalk, that impacts oligodendrocyte precursor cell specification. This study made its way to the Apr 2021 issue of Nature Neuroscience. Congratulations She will be presenting her work in a webinar on November 18th, starting at 12:30 pm. The Zoom-ID for this meeting is 845 0235 9100. Join the webinar to follow Dr. Paredes´ talk, and also to get to know a few other DGZ awardees!