The Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Early Career Award is one of the most prestigious awards granted in Germany to young researchers. This year, it celebrated its 20th anniversary.
When Ana Martin-Villalba thinks back of March 14, 2006, it is clear how vividly she recalls the events of that day: the historical setting of the fully occupied St. Paul’s Church in Frankfurt, the camera flashes from journalists, the laudation recognizing her scientific achievements. “It was all very, very impressive,” she says. “And not just the day itself, but also the media hype afterwards – Die ZEIT newspaper even ran a full-page article about me and my work.”
No wonder: Currently a professor at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg, Martin-Villalba made history of sorts at the time. She was the first to receive the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Early Career Award, endowed with €60,000. It is not without reason that this debut attracted so much attention: each year since 1952, the Paul Ehrlich Foundation has conferred an award of the same name to the world’s leading figures in biochemistry and medicine – the fields in which Paul Ehrlich himself worked. In the scientific community, it enjoys the highest renown: of the now almost 140 laureates, 26 were later awarded with the Nobel Prize.
“When we launched the Early Career Award, we of course hoped to benefit to some extent from that radiance,” explains Prof. Dr. Jürgen Bereiter-Hahn, then Vice President of Goethe University and one of the award’s initiators. “We also wanted to open a new chapter and specifically support good ideas and research approaches already in the early career stages. We explicitly had outstanding scientific talents in mind who work at a German research institution – unlike the main prize, which is also awarded to researchers abroad.”
Learning of the honor on the way to kindergarten
At the time she received the award, Martin-Villalba was 34 and already led a research group at the DKFZ. Thanks to her studies on an important signaling pathway, whose blockage leads to improved regeneration of the spinal cord after paraplegia, she had already made a name for herself in the field. The native Spaniard and mother of three learned of her success while on her way to kindergarten. “An award like that makes you incredibly proud, of course,” she recalls.
“The award is a great recognition,” emphasizes Bonn-based brain researcher Tobias Ackels. “Strictly speaking, that applies not just to me: the work being recognized would not have been possible without the collaboration with other scientists.” The professor of neuroscience was honored with the award this year for his insights into how the brain processes olfactory stimuli. The selection process alone had been tremendously impressive. “Last summer I was invited, along with six other candidates, to the selection symposium at the Georg-Speyer-Haus,” he recalls. “The presentations were all brilliant – it was really great to meet so many outstanding colleagues there.”
The final stage for everyone consisted of an individual interview with the selection committee, held in Paul Ehrlich’s wood-paneled office. On the way home, he harbored little hope of winning, he says, especially because of his special position as a basic researcher and non-medical scientist. All the greater was his joy when, three months later, he received the call with the good news.
Visibility booster
The award is endowed with €60,000; a sum to be used exclusively for scientific projects. Ackels already knows what he will spend the money on, including a sophisticated camera system to record and document the behavior of his test animals. But it is not the money that makes the award so attractive, emphasizes Prof. Dr. Ana Martin-Villalba: “Far more important is the visibility the award lends to one’s own research – especially in the highly competitive environment in which we operate.”
This visibility can make it easier to attract third-party funding for a project or to prevail in a job application. Scientific awards are after all always also proof of excellence – and thus constitute an important door opener that facilitates the implementation of one’s own ideas. “I believe this to be particularly true for the Early Career Award, because the original Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Award is already held in such high international esteem,” says Martin-Villalba. Ackels also hopes that the recognition will help him on his further path. “When I see what became of the other laureates, I’m actually quite optimistic.”
Rigorous selection process
So far, the selection committee’s instincts have indeed proven to be great: all laureates have made a name for themselves in science and many now hold key positions in either the German or the international research landscape. “One important factor is certainly that, right from the outset, we applied very strict criteria to help us identify truly outstanding men and women to whom we could give an additional push with our award,” emphasizes Jürgen Bereiter-Hahn. This rigorous selection process is also what makes the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Early Career Award special, agrees Ana Martin-Villalba: “The decision is not influenced by factors like whether you work at Stanford or how good your network is. The only thing that counts is your own research achievement.”
The high level of excellence among the laureates is also illustrated by the fact that many of them later received other prestigious honors, such as the German Research Foundation’s (DFG) Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize, which is also awarded to promising early career researchers. On the occasion of the award’s 20th anniversary, this year saw a very special premiere: medical scientist Prof. Dr. Andrea Ablasser was honored at St. Paul’s Church with the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Award. She likely experienced a déjà vu: it was here, after all, where in 2014, she was awarded with the foundation’s early career award.
Frank Luerweg
