Stephan Barden received the prize for his dissertation “Structural and Functional Analysis of the Pilus Protein CagL of the Helicobacter pylori Type IV Secretion System.” He performed the work on this topic from 2010 to 2014 in the group of Professor H. Niemann at the Universität Bielefeld. Stephan elucidated the structure and the function of CagL, an essential component of a secretion system of Helicobacter pylori. He studied bioengineering at the Fachhochschule Aachen, and at present he works for CSL Behring in Marburg
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Bernd Reisinger´s doctoral work on the “Mechanistic investigation of artificially designed light regulation of naturally occurring, and characterization of ancestral (ßa)8-barrel enzymes” was acknowledged with the prize. He had performed his investigations between 2010 and 2014 at the Lehrstuhl für Biochemie (Professor Reinhard Sterner) at the Universität Regensburg. With an innovative approach, he elucidated how enzymes can be interchanged in their functions by a few substitutions and how they diverted from now extinct common ancestors. His findings hold great promise for enzyme design and technology. They were published among others in J. Am. Chem. Soc. and Angewandte Chemie. Bernd Reisinger studied chemistry at the Universität Regensburg. Presently, he holds a position at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt in Braunschweig
Adrian Drazic received the prize for his doctoral work on the “Characterization of the HOCl-specific transcription factor HypT and the effects of HOCl on the metabolism of E. coli”, which he performed from 2010 to 2013 at the Institut für Biotechnologie of the TU München in the group of Dr. Jeanette Winter. He studied biochemistry at the TU München. In the course of his doctoral work, Adrian discovered an exciting novel mechanism of how E. coli responds to oxidative stress exerted by hypochlorite. His work resulted in six publications, among others in Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. After his Ph.D., he started to work as a postdoc at the University of Bergen in Norway.