"America´s Nobel Prize": Lasker award for former supvervisory board member Prof. Dr. Dieter Oesterhelt
"America´s Nobel Prize": Lasker award for former supvervisory board member Prof. Dr. Dieter Oesterhelt
Our supervisory board member of 13 years Prof. Dr. Dieter Oesterhelt has received the Lasker Award 2021. And this is well deserved. He laid the foundation for a whole academic field which allows scientist to analyse neurological connections in the brain, gain new insights in a variety of biological fields and just recently made a blind person regain vision – a success of biblical proportions. There might be yet more to come: 50% of Lasker Award Laureates have later received a Noble Prize.
“I congratulate from the bottom of my heart. Both as a friend and as a scientist, Prof. Dr. Dieter Oesterhelt has never failed to impress me”, says Chairman of the Board Dieter Hahn. CEO Eva Galik emphasizes: “His contributions to bitop are invaluable.” In his 13 years in bitop´s supervisory board, Prof. Dr. Dieter Oesterhelt has helped in optimising the bacterial strain. As a result, the production of medEctoin® is now ten times more efficient. His works in basic research have led to a deeper understanding of ectoine´s structure and mode of action which paved the way to the development of a broad portfolio of medical devices which have improved the lifes of countless people suffering from diseases such as atopic dermatitis, Dry Eye syndrome, hay fever and more. Dieter Hahn remembers: “Whenever I was wondering if all my investments will bear fruit one day, he has always encouraged me: `There is no stronger natural cell protector than ectoin´.” Today, a variety of clinical studies prove him right.
Lasker Awards: “the highest honors bestowed upon medical scientists by an American organization”*
Since 1945, the Lasker Awards have awarded scientist who have made major contributions to medical science and earned the reputation of “America´s Nobels”: 86 Lasker laureates have received the Nobel Prize. They are administered by the Lasker Foundation, founded by Albert Lasker and his wife Mary Woodard Lasker (later a medical research activist).
Bacteriorhodopsin: How Oesterhelt´s discovery of a light driven ion pump opened up a new field in medical science
More than fifty years ago, Oesterhelt discovered a light driven protein in a salt-loving archaebacterium and could subsequently prove that it is used to obtain energy: a new form of photosynthesis. During his time as head of the Membrane Biochemistry Department at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry he was able to dissect the mechanism and determine the chemical and spatial structure of the protein he called bacteriorhodopsin. The methods he and his team developed are today the basis for the structural analysis of membrane proteins.
Further discoveries of microbial retinal proteins such as channelrhodopsin laid the foundation of a new research field: optogenetics. Here, rhodopsin is introduced into cells that can be stimulated like an on/off-switch. This opens up numerous opportunities to investigate the function of the brain and perhaps some day to cure certain brain diseases. Just recently, José-Alain Sahel und Botond Roska were able to make a blind man regain partial vision which truly is a success of biblical proportions.
Sources:
*https://www.aai.org/About/History/Notable-Members/Lasker-Awardees
https://www.mpg.de/8723016/F001_Fokus_018-025.pdf
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005272813001436
