Körber Prize

The Körber Prize honours outstanding achievements in science. An overview of the prize winners from previous years is available, including the awards from 2006 to 2024.

2024

Prof. Dr. Erin M. Schuman

Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt am Main

Erin Schuman's research has revolutionised our understanding of how nerve cells function in the brain. She discovered that and how proteins - the crucial building blocks of cells - are produced at the junctions between nerve cells. The mechanism she uncovered is the basis for communication between nerve cells, for the storage of memories and for the development of the brain as a whole.

2022

Prof. Dr. Anthony Hyman

Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden

In 2009, Anthony Hyman and his team discovered a completely new state of biological matter: proteins can accumulate locally in high concentrations in the cell fluid. These 'condensates' resemble tiny droplets that, unlike other cell organelles, are not surrounded by a confining membrane. The greatly increased protein concentration inside them stimulates biochemical reactions that would not be possible outside.

2019

Prof. Dr. Bernhard Schölkopf

Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Tübingen site, Tübingen

Bernhard Schölkopf has developed mathematical methods that have made a significant contribution to helping artificial intelligence (AI) reach its recent heights. Schölkopf achieved worldwide renown with so-called support vector machines and kernel methods. These are not machines in the traditional sense, but sophisticated algorithms that enable computers to perform highly complex AI calculations quickly and precisely.

2018

Prof. Dr. Svante Pääbo

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig

Svante Pääbo achieved the scientific feat of reconstructing the complete genome of Neanderthals from their bones, which are many thousands of years old. Comparisons of the Neanderthal genome with the genetic make-up of modern humans revealed that early modern humans and Neanderthals had produced offspring together around 50,000 years ago.

2017

Prof. Dr. Karsten Danzmann

Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Hanover), Hannover

Karsten Danzmann and his team developed the key technologies with which the American LIGO detectors were able to directly detect gravitational waves for the first time in 2015.

2013

Prof. Dr. Immanuel Bloch

Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, Garching

Immanuel Bloch was honoured for his pioneering work in the field of quantum simulation with ultracold atoms. Bloch creates a microscopic ‘light crystal’ from laser beams, in whose ‘optical cages’ ultracold atoms are trapped. With this ‘quantum simulator’, theoretical models of the structure of solids - solid materials such as metals or ceramics - can be precisely tested.

2012

Prof. Dr. Matthias Mann

Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Martinsried

Matthias Mann has set himself the goal of cracking the code of the proteome - that is, all the proteins in the human body. Mann has developed a ground-breaking analytical method that makes mass spectrometers, which have been used in physics and chemistry for decades, available to biologists.

2011

Prof. Dr. Stefan Hell

Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences, Göttingen

Stefan Hell constructed a new type of light microscope that can see much more clearly than ‘allowed’ by Abbe's law from 1873, which had previously been considered almost insurmountable. Hell found a way - using quantum mechanical tricks - to override the Abbe limit.

2007

Prof. Dr. Peter Seeberger

Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Potsdam-Golm

Peter Seeberger has developed a machine that attacks pathogens in a new way: The fully automated sugar synthesiser produces synthetic sugar chains from individual building blocks that resemble those on the pathogens and have already proven to be effective vaccine candidates in experiments with mice.

2006

Prof. Dr. Ulrich Hartl