Prof. Volker Haucke, Director at the Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie (FMP) receives the Feldberg Prize 2020, which is awarded annually by the Feldberg Foundation for anglo-german scientific exchange. The aim is to promote scientific exchange between British and German researchers in the field of experimental medicine, in particular in the disciplines of physiology and pharmacology.

The biochemist Volker Haucke studies together with his team the molecular mechanisms of endocytosis and endolysosomal membrane dynamics and its role in cell signaling and neurotransmission. The overarching goal of his work is to provide a mechanistic understanding of exo-endocytosis and endolysosomal function and its regulation by proteins and lipids and to use this know-how to develop novel strategies for acute chemical and pharmacological interference. Volker Haucke's contributions to science have been recognized by his election as a Member of Leopoldina, the German National Academy of Science (Halle) and of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Science. Since 2014 he is an EMBO member. In 2017 he received the Avanti Award of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB).

The Feldberg Prize goes back to the pharmacologist Prof. Wilhelm Feldberg. As a Jewish scientist, he had to leave the Physiological Institute of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin in 1933 and emigrated to England. After the war he founded the Feldberg Foundation with his compensation money in 1961 and since then a German and an English scientist have been honoured every year. The laureates themselves choose the institute in the partner country, where they will accept the prize and will give their honorary lecture, the Feldberg Lecture.

Professor Volker Haucke
Volker Haucke received his PhD summa cum laude in 1997 from the Biozentrum of the University of Basel, Switzerland, for his studies on mitochondrial biogenesis in the group of Gottfried (Jeff) Schatz. Following postdoctoral work as a fellow of European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) and the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) in the group of Pietro De Camilli at Yale University School of Medicine he started his own laboratory at the University of Göttingen as a member of the EMBO Young Investigator program. He was appointed as a full professor of biochemistry at the Freie Universiät Berlin in 2003. Since 2012 Volker Haucke is director at the Leibniz Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmacologie (FMP) and professor of molecular pharmacology at the Freie Universität Berlin and a member of the NeuroCure Cluster of Excellence and ECN.

Further informations about the Feldberg Foundation:
www.feldbergfoundation.org

Contact:
Professor Dr. Volker Haucke
Professor of Molecular Pharmacology at the Freie Universität Berlin
Executive Board Spokesman at the Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V.
Member of ECN
Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie (FMP)
Robert-Rössle-Str.10
13125 Berlin, Campus Berlin-Buch
E-Mail: haucke(at)fmp-berlin.de
www.leibniz-fmp.de/haucke

Source: Press release of the Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie (FMP)