The MHH plus foundation honours Professor Dr. Hinrich Abken and Dr. Mark Schmitt.
Happy about the success (from left): Prof. Dr. Peter Hillemanns, MHH President Prof. Dr. Michael Manns, the two award winners Dr. Mark Schmitt and Professor Dr. Hinrich Abken, Minister of Science Falko Mohrs and Prof. Dr. Siegfried Piepenbrock, Förderstiftung MHH plus. Copyright: Karin Kaiser / MHH
Status: 20 June 2023
The Johann Georg Zimmermann Research Award and the Johann Georg Zimmermann Medal are among the highest awards for merit in cancer research in Germany. The Förderstiftung MHH plus awarded the prizes on Monday, 19 June 2023, at the Hannover Medical School (MHH). MHH President Prof. Dr. Michael Manns presented the prizes together with the deputy chairman of the foundation, Prof. Dr. Siegfried Piepenbrock, and in the presence of Lower Saxony's Minister of Science, Falko Mohrs. In his welcoming address, the Minister praised the impressive translational potential of the research awarded here. "Although they are at very different stages in their scientific careers, the award winners embody modern and powerful oncology that uses state-of-the-art technology to identify new patterns and mechanisms and develop application perspectives."
The Johann Georg Zimmermann Medal was awarded to Prof. Dr Hinrich Abken, Director at the Leibniz Institute for Immunotherapy and Chair of Gene Immunotherapy at the University of Regensburg, for his services to the immunotherapy of oncological diseases. Professor Abken is a pioneer in the development of CAR-T cells, which are now successfully used worldwide to treat lymphomas and leukaemias. His work in basic research has shown the translational potential of synthetic immunology in modern cancer research, has significantly changed the treatment of tumours and has set new impulses in immunotherapy.
The Johann Georg Zimmermann Research Prize, endowed with 10,000 euros, directed at young cancer researchers for their current scientific work, was awarded to Dr Mark Schmitt. He heads his own research group at the Pharmacological Institute of the Faculty of Medicine at Philipps University Marburg. The tumour biologist researches processes that play a role in both the development and therapy resistance of intestinal tumours and is primarily concerned with the question of how this resistance can be overcome therapeutically.
"With Prof. Dr. Hinrich Abken, we are honouring an internationally renowned cancer researcher who has made significant contributions to the immunotherapy of tumours," emphasised MHH President Prof. Dr. Michael Manns. "And Dr Mark Schmitt is successfully researching new ways to overcome therapy resistance in tumours."
Outstanding scientist with vision for clinical application
Prof. Dr. Hinrich Abken is considered one of the pioneers of a new form of immunological cancer therapy, the so-called CAR T-cell therapy, which is now successfully used worldwide for the therapy of lymphomas and leukaemias and increasingly beyond.
Hinrich Abken studied medicine in Essen, where he became involved in experimental cancer research during his studies. After completing his doctorate and post-doctoral work in molecular and cell biology at the West German Tumour Centre, he moved in 1987 to the Institute of Genetics at the Faculty of Natural Sciences at the University of Bonn, where he habilitated in genetics and immunology in 1993. In the same year, he was appointed Professor of Tumour Genetics at the Clinic I for Internal Medicine at the Medical Faculty of the University of Cologne, where he turned his attention to researching the immune response against tumours. "We were fascinated by the idea of whether the immune response of T cells could be specifically directed against tumours," says Prof. Abken. As early as 1994, his research group developed recombinant recognition molecules, now known as "chimeric antigen receptors" (CARs). Through innovative application of the tools of synthetic immunology, the initial vision of an immune cell-driven response against tumours led to the development of several generations of CARs, some of which are now successfully used in the clinic worldwide. In 25 years of pioneering, visionary research and development in synthetic immunology at the Centre for Molecular Medicine Cologne, he succeeded in casting the initial idea of a directed T-cell response into a solid concept of "CAR engineering", which has been taken up by many groups at home and abroad and is constantly being further developed. Many visiting scientists from home and abroad have learned the new technologies in his lab and carried them on to their home institutes. In 2018, Prof. Abken moved to the University of Regensburg, where he holds the Chair of Gene Immunotherapy, has played a major role in establishing the Leibniz Institute for Immunotherapy (LIT) and is a member of the directorate there.
Overcoming therapy resistance in intestinal tumours: Innovative research decodes the right mechanisms
Colorectal cancer is one of the most common causes of cancer-related deaths and is difficult to treat, especially in late stages, because the tumours develop therapy resistance. Tumour biologist Dr. Mark Schmitt is researching processes that play a role in both the development and therapy resistance of intestinal tumours and is primarily concerned with the question of how this resistance can be overcome therapeutically.
In his current work, he was able to show in preclinical models that cancer cells that die during chemotherapy emit the cellular energy carrier ATP (adenosine triphosphate) to "warn" their neighbouring cells. The ATP binds to special receptors (P2X4 receptors) on the surface of surrounding tumour cells, which immediately activates a survival mechanism (mTOR signalling pathway) in these cells that protects them from cell death and makes them resistant to treatment. If this "warning signal" is suppressed with medication, this increases the efficiency of the therapy and makes originally resistant tumours treatable. Corresponding therapies are now to be tested in clinical trials and extended to other tumour types.
The release of messenger substances by dying cells is normally a mechanism to activate wound healing in the context of an injury and has been adapted by cancer cells to make the tumour resistant to cell-damaging therapy. "It is amazing how tumours use normal cellular processes in their favour to evade therapeutic control in every possible way. It is a great drive for me to decipher these mechanisms and thereby create new approaches to cancer treatment," says Schmitt.
Dr. Mark Schmitt has dedicated his scientific career from an early stage to better understanding regenerative processes in the gut in order to study them in the context of cancer development. After studying biology in Karlsruhe, Schmitt did his doctorate at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and then moved to the renowned Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam. He then worked in Prof. Florian Greten's laboratory at the Georg-Speyer-Haus in Frankfurt and was an associate at the LOEWE centre Frankfurt Cancer Institute.
Since 2021, the 39-year-old has headed his own research group at the Pharmacological Institute of the Department of Medicine at Philipps University Marburg. His goal is to find further ways to improve cancer treatment with his laboratory and in (cross-site) cooperation with the scientists at the UCT Frankfurt-Marburg.
Text: Simone Corpus