Westphal Prize

The German Society for Immunology e.V. (DGfI) annually awards the Otto-Westphal Thesis Prize to one of its members. The prize is awarded for the best dissertation on the subject of immunology that was successfully completed in a German-speaking country during the last calendar year (as determined by the date of the oral exam). Self-nomination and nomination by others is possible. The prize carries a prize money of 1,500 EUR.

The prize is named after Prof. Dr. Otto Westphal (1913-2004), founding director of the Max-Planck-Institute for Immunobiology in Freiburg as well as founding member and long-standing president (1967-1976) of the German Society for Immunology e.V. As a chemist Otto Westphal was particularly interested in the structure and function of bacterial cell wall components. He is especially noted for his ground-breaking work on the elucidation of the endotoxic function of lipopolysaccharides. He also characterized numerous antigens from gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria using immunochemical methods.

Kindly supported by Dr.-Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG, Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen (www.porsche.com).

The application deadline is January 31, 2021.

Please apply with the following documents:
1. Cover letter incl. CV and publication list
2. Summary of the most important findings (1 page max.)
3. Letter of support by the academic supervisor
4. Dissertation
5. All documents apart from the dissertation must be submitted in English.
6. The applicant must be member of the DGfI at the time of application.

Please send all required documents combined into one single PDF file (max. 10MB) to:
Theresa Hoppe
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Immunologie e.V.
c/o DRFZ
Charitéplatz 1
10117 Berlin, Germany
mail@dgfi.org

Further information:
Prof. Dr. Christine Falk, Hannover
E-Mail: Falk.Christine@mh-hannover.de

Previous prize winners:

‘Prize of the DGfI for the best dissertation’

1976
Michael Schneider, Göttingen

1977
Annegret Starzinski-Powitz, Mainz

‘Otto-Westphal Thesis Prize’

1978
Stefan Becker, Mainz

1980
Bernhard Liesegang, Köln / Andreas Radbruch, Köln

1982
Anton Rolink, Basel

1984
Marianne Brüggemann, Köln

1986
Robert Strohal, Innsbruck

1989
Ulrich Pessara, Heidelberg

1991
Ulrich E. Schaible, Pforzheim

1993
Kirsten Falk, Tübingen / Harald Kropshofer, Heidelberg / Ralf Kühn, Köln / Olaf Rötzschke, Tübingen

1995
Daniel Graf, London

1997
Mario Assenmacher, Köln

1998
Christina Berndt, Heidelberg

1999
Andreas Hutloff, Berlin

2000
Max Löhning, Berlin

2001
A. K. Nussbaum, La Jolla (USA) / M. Kraus, Boston (USA)

2002
Karsten Fischer, Berlin

2003
Melanie Laschinger, Bad Nauheim

2004
Markus Feuerer, Berlin

2005
Jan C. Dudda, Freiburg/Seattle (USA)

2006
Niklas Feldhahn, Düsseldorf

2007
Tim Worbs, Hannover

2008
Marcus Lettau, Kiel

2009
Michaela Gack, Boston (USA)

2010
Tim Lämmermann, NIH, NIAID, Bethesda (USA)

2011
Swantje Hammerschmidt, Hannover

2012
Lesly Calderón Dominguez, Freiburg

2013
Elina Kiss, Freiburg

2014
Eva Bär, Zürich (Schweiz)

2015
Alexander Ulges, Mainz

2016
Veit Buchholz, München

2017
Anna Brewitz, Bonn

2018
René Pfeifle, Erlangen

2019
Robin Graf, Berlin

DGfI Awards

Otto-Westphal Thesis Prize DGfI Awards