Scientist from Greifswald Honoured for International Services in Pneumococcal Research

DGHM award, © Romy Held, 2024
DGHM award, © Romy Held, 2024

The German Society for Hygiene and Microbiology (DGHM) has awarded its main award to Prof. Dr. Sven Hammerschmidt from the University of Greifswald. He has thus been honoured for his internationally recognised and innovative scientific contributions. These have made a significant contribution to the understanding of the virulence of Streptococcus pneumoniae and to the elucidation of the protective immune response. The award ceremony took place at the beginning of June 2024 at the annual conference of the DGHM, which was co-organised with the Association for General and Applied Microbiology (VAAM).

The main award of the German Society for Hygiene and Microbiology [de] (DGHM) is awarded to active scientists with outstanding and internationally recognised multiannual research activities in a current and future-oriented field of hygiene and microbiology.

Prof. Dr. Sven Hammerschmidt was appointed to a W3 professorship for General and Molecular Genetics at the Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genome Research at the University of Greifswald in 2008. Since then, he has been Head of the Department of Molecular Genetics and Infection Biology. He received the prize for the decades of his extraordinarily innovative, productive and internationally visible activities as a scientist with a particular focus on infections caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae. Pneumococci are infectious agents with very high mortality rates, yet they are also part of the human microbiome in the nasopharynx. Sven Hammerschmidt took a detailed look into the previously only partially understood connection at molecular and infection biology level between the colonisation of the nasopharynx and lung inflammation or invasive diseases caused by pneumococci.

Prof. Dr. Sven Hammerschmidt has published more than 190 original peer-reviewed articles in international journals, as well as numerous reviews and chapters in books. He is a co-editor and reviewer for many scientific journals and funding organisations. He was also active in several scientific advisory boards such as the SFB-TR84 Berlin-Gießen or the Research Center Borstel - Leibniz Lung Center. Prof. Dr. Sven Hammerschmidt was spokesman of the DFG Research Training Group 1870 "Bacterial Respiratory Infections" and a coordinator of several BMBF projects. To date, he has successfully supervised 29 young scientists during their doctorate.

Further information
Information on the 2024 award ceremony [de]

Contact at the University of Greifswald
Prof. Dr. Sven Hammerschmidt
Department of Molecular Genetics and Infection Biology,
Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics
Felix-Hausdorff-Straße 8, 17489 Greifswald
Tel: +49 3834 420 5700
sven.hammerschmidtuni-greifswaldde
mnf.uni-greifswald.de/genetik

 

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