On behalf of the 41. annual Ringberg symposium at lake Tegernsee, organized by BioM and the Gene Center Munich and co-sponsored by the Peter and Traudl Engelhorn-Stiftung, Prof. Patrick Cramer, President of the Max-Planck-Society gave the first and inaugural “Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker Lecture” to honor the exceptional lifetime achievements of the former Professor of Biochemistry at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) and president of the German Research Councel (DFG).
Prof. Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker was not only a leading scientist, but also mentor and fatherly friends to many leading and world-renowned scientists in the field of genetics and microbiology.
Prof. Patrick Cramer, himself such a distinguished scientist in the field of genetics and recipient of many prestigious life science awards spoke in his presentation entitled “The Biomedicine Revolution: past, present and future” on the new generation of drugs that are increasingly based on the very deep understanding of the genetic information and functional structures of new therapeutic molecules.
He exemplified this with the “Breakthrough drug of the year 2024” Lenacapavir as a first molecule that targets the HIV capsid. Other examples are RNA-based therapeutics for sickle cell anemia as a monogenetic disease and the more recent mRNA vaccines.
Prof. Cramer emphasized the fact that artificial intelligence (AI) will dramatically accelerate biomedicine. AI is just at the beginning as a disruptive technology which also requires novel ethical guidelines and adjusted scientific and commercial strategies. However, excellent basic science is the foundation for all future innovation in the biomedical field, e.g. also in immunotherapies, GLP1/2 therapeutics, intra-cellular targeted drug activation, nanobots or Proteomics-based diagnostics.
Even ERC grants are an important foundation for the translation of ideas into products that benefit many patients. This also requires even more efforts to attract international talents on all levels to all members of the German science and research alliance.
Curriculum vitae Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker:
Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of Munich (LMU). He studied chemistry at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, where he obtained his PhD. He did postdoc research at the University of California in Berkeley, USA, and the Karolinska Institute. He held professorships at the University of Cologne and the Institute of Biochemistry, University of Munich. 1984-1997 he was Director of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the Gene Center in Munich, Germany.
Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker served as President of the German Research Foundation (DFG) from 1998 to 2006, and subsequently as first Secretary General of the European Research Council (ERC). From 2009 to 2015 he was Secretary General of the Human Frontier Science Program Organization. He was awarded Doctores honoris causa from the Veterinary University of Vienna, and the Medical Faculties of the Universities of Würzburg and Munich.
He is a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and the National Academy of Medicine of the US National Academies of Sciences. He received several awards, among them the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star from Japan and the International Science and Technology Cooperation Award from the People’s Republic of China, the Leibniz Medal and the Robert Koch Medal.
Curriculum vitae Patrick Cramer:
Prof. Dr. Patrick Cramer has been President of the Max Planck Society since 2023. Cramer studied chemistry in Stuttgart, Heidelberg, Bristol and Cambridge. In 1998, he received his doctorate from the University of Heidelberg for research work he carried out at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Grenoble, France. He was then a postdoctoral fellow with Roger Kornberg at Stanford University.
From 2001 to 2014, he was Professor of Biochemistry at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU) and from 2014 to 2023 Director of the Department of Molecular Biology at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Natural Sciences (formerly Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry) in Göttingen. Cramer has received numerous awards for his research on gene transcription and its regulation in eukaryotic cells, including the Shaw Prize in 2023, the Gregori Aminoff Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy in 2022 and the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine in 2021.
Cramer is a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the American National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society. He has been involved in science in many ways, for example as Director of the Munich Gene Center (2004-2013), as Chairman of the EMBL Council (2016-2019) and as Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Max Delbrück Center in Berlin (2016-2022).