Bayer Announces Winners of its Early Excellence in Science Award

The new winners of the ‘Bayer Early Excellence in Science Award’ have been announced. The prizes, each worth Euro 10,000, have been awarded by an independent scientific committee of the Bayer Science & Education Foundation.

The awards are presented to excellent young scientists and physicians in the early stages of their academic and clinical research careers. The prizes will be awarded on June, 25th at the Bayer Foundation Day in Berlin.

This international talent award was first presented in 2009. It is awarded annually in the three categories biology, chemistry and medical science, each with prize money of Euro 10,000. The selection is made on the basis of the originality and quality of candidates’ research and the significance of this work for the respective award category.

This year, Dr. Christoph Engel (University of Regensburg, Germany) won the ‘Biology’ category, Dr. Keary Engle (Scripps Research Institute La Jolla, USA) bagged the ‘Chemistry’ award and Dr. Kathryn Susan Hayward (Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, Australia) took the prize in the ‘Medical Science’ field.

Using cutting-edge structural biology methods, Dr. Christoph Engel significantly contributed to understanding the molecular basis of ribosomal RNA transcription.

Dr. Keary Engle’s research elucidated an empirical model for rationalising and predicting initiation rates of a commonly used class of olefin metathesis catalysts. His independent lab seeks to invent a variety of selective catalytic reactions to functionalisation carbon-carbon π-bonds to prepare valuable target motifs.

Dr. Kathryn Hayward’s research to date has focused on upper limb rehabilitation as a model to understand the neurobiology of recovery post-stroke. Her work has demonstrated that current approaches to upper limb rehabilitation help patients recover a little bit of function, but do not enable patients to achieve large, clinically meaningful gains. Current approaches are likely limited because they are one-size-fits-all; offering too little rehabilitation too late in the recovery timeline. Hayward’s current work aims to leverage within human stroke trials the knowledge about neurobiology defined in preclinical models of stroke. Her clinical trials are designed to support development of new approaches that are focused on ‘right patient, time, intervention and dose’.