2022 Alfried Krupp Prize

The Alfried Krupp Prize

Since 1986, the Alfried Krupp Prize has been presented annually to young scientists who hold a first professorship at a German university in the fields of natural sciences and engineering. It is one of the most highly endowed awards for young scientists and has so far been presented to 43 outstanding young researchers.

The award, which is endowed with EUR 1.1 million, is intended to enable the award winners to create an improved working environment and advance their work in research and teaching over a period of five years, independent of public funding.

The winner of the 2022 Alfried Krupp Prize: Prof. Dr. Lucas T. Jae

Prof. Dr. Lucas T. Jae (37), born in Frankfurt (Germany), studied human biology at the University of Marburg (Germany) and at the Whitehead Institute at MIT in Cambridge (USA) and received his doctorate with top honours from Utrecht University in the Netherlands in 2015. Subsequently, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam. In 2016, he took over the management of his own independent research group at the LMU Gene Centre. He holds a W2 professorship for functional genomics there since 2019.

The work of Lucas Jae has already been recognised with high-ranking grants and awards, including the “Starting Grant” from the European Research Council (2018), the “Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize” of the German Research Foundation and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (2018), and a scholarship from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes (German Academic Scholarship Foundation) (2006). Jae, 37, has been Professor of Functional Genomics at the Faculty of Biochemistry at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) since 2019. Using his unique screening system, he investigates the role of mitochondria in human disease processes and in the process has discovered a long sought-after signalling pathway that transmits mitochondrial disorders.

About the research conducted by Lucas T. Jae

Lucas T. Jae is researching the genetic and molecular foundations of mitochondria. Mitochondria are cell organelles that are regarded as the “power house of the cell”. They produce what is known as adenosine triphosphate, which serves as an energy source for the cells. Due to their key role in metabolism, mitochondrial defects lead to serious, most often incurable diseases in humans, such as a number of hereditary metabolic disorders and myopathies, as well as age-related conditions in the areas of neurodegeneration and cardiovascular diseases. In models, mitochondrial stress processes can be mapped well, but in humans they are hardly understood, for the most part. Jae’s research focuses on mapping the genetic and molecular underpinnings of mitochondrial function in healthy and impaired states and uncovering their interactions. To analyse these processes, Jae and his team rely on a combination of specially developed methods of genome manipulation, synthetic biology and genome-wide screening at the single-cell level, in combination with classical methods of biochemistry and cell biology. The aim is to find novel approaches for future therapies for human diseases that can be attributed to impaired mitochondrial function.

His peers describe Lucas T. Jae as an exceptional scientist: In addition to his scientific achievements and extensive publication activity – even during his doctorate he published several times in the top research media Nature and Science – he is involved in teaching at the LMU and supervises students in laboratory courses and final theses.

“We are delighted to present this year’s Alfried Krupp Prize to Lucas T. Jae, an excellent scientist in the field of biochemistry. The decoding of cellular processes is the foundation for the further development of our knowledge about diseases. Lucas T. Jae has already made groundbreaking discoveries in this field in his young career. He is pursuing the goal of finding the foundations for new therapeutic approaches to incurable diseases with a visionary approach. The Krupp Foundation is accompanying him on this path with the Alfried Krupp Prize.”

Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Ursula Gather, Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of the Krupp Foundation

Ceremonial act: Impressions from the event

The Alfried Krupp Prize is presented every autumn at Villa Hügel. Prof. Ursula Gather, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation, welcomed the guests and opened the evening with a speech. Barbara Frey, theatre director of the Ruhrtriennale 2021-2023, gave the keynote speech entitled “Im Wald gibt´s keine Uhr – Zeit der Geister, Zeit der Künste” (“There’s no clock in the forest – time of the spirits, time of the arts”).

Laudatio

The evening was framed by the laudatio for Lucas T. Jae, which was presented as a film and showed the perspectives of his colleagues: Hanna Fieler, Prof. Dr. Karl-Peter Hopfner, Prof. Dr. Veit Hornung and Dr. Max-Hinderk Schuler provided an insight into the collaboration with Lucas T. Jae as well as his field of research and outlined his personality. Ina Brandes, Minister for Culture and Science of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, presented the Award to Lucas T. Jae in a ceremonial act.