Rottendorf Science Awards presented

Dr. Lukas Ernst, formerly of the Institute of Pharmaceutical Biology at TU Braunschweig, was awarded the national prize and Dr. Lennart Brewitz, Department of Chemistry at the University of Oxford, was awarded the European prize by the Rottendorf Foundation for their outstanding achievements in pharmaceutical research. The awards are endowed with 10,000 euros each and were recently presented at the House of Science in Braunschweig.

The Rottendorf Foundation’s Science Awards are presented every two years to young scientists from a German and an international university or college. The foundation is financed in part by distributions from the Rottendorf companies. The winners were nominated by selection committees at TU Braunschweig and the University of Oxford.

Dr. Lukas Ernst completed his doctoral thesis at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Biology in 2024. He is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena. His scientific interest lies in plant-based medicinal substances with complex chemical structures that are difficult to isolate and synthesise. In his doctoral thesis, Lukas Ernst focused on the biosynthesis of complex ingredients in St. John’s wort. Extracts of St. John’s wort, for example, are established as an antidepressant. Dr. Ernst succeeded in identifying a key reaction that contributes significantly to the complexity and diversity of the constituents in two variations. The enzymes involved are now available for the reconstruction of plant biosynthesis pathways in microorganisms.

Dr. Lennart Brewitz has been working as a junior researcher at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oxford for over eight years. His research focuses primarily on investigating the therapeutic and diagnostic potential as well as the functions, mechanisms and structures of disease-relevant human and viral enzymes that catalyse post-translational protein modifications. Through his work in the field of medicinal chemistry and biochemistry of these enzymes, including the development of highly potent inhibitors, Dr. Lennart Brewitz has made outstanding contributions in recent years that will be of crucial importance for the development of new drugs for the treatment of infectious diseases and cancer.