Dr Claudia Langenberg, a Programme Leader with our Aetiology of Diabetes and Related Metabolic disorders programme, is one of five scientists to win this year’s Helmholtz International Fellow Award.
This prestigious award aims to intensify existing cooperation between Helmholtz Centres and international research institutes and to further strengthen the links between Helmholtz researchers and outstanding colleagues abroad. As well as receiving 20,000 Euros in prize money, Dr Langenberg has been invited to undertake a period of research at the Helmholtz Zentrum München.
The handover of the prize in Munich is scheduled for mid-November.
As her name suggests, Claudia Langenberg’s roots lie in Germany. Born in Munich, she received a medical degree and a PhD in Medicine from the University of Münster in Northern Germany. After clinical training, she obtained an MSc in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and a PhD in Epidemiology from University College London. In 2016, she completed specialist training in Public Health and the following year was appointed program leader here at the MRC Epidemiology Unit, where she previously helped to coordinate the EPIC-InterAct study. Currently, she lives in London with her husband and two young daughters.
Dr Langenberg has been involved in more than 250 scientific studies and has published in top-ranking journals. She played a leading role in setting up international consortia such as MAGIC (Meta-Analysis of Glucose and Insulin-related traits Consortium) and COMETS (Consortium of Metabolomics Studies). In 2017 she was Editor-in-Chief of the ‘Generation Genome’ report of the Chief Medical Officer of England, and this year the UK government established the National Genomics Board, tasked with implementing the report’s recommendations and restructuring genomic medicine within the National Health Service (NHS) in England.
The other Helmholtz International Fellow Awardees 2018 are Peter Bauer (Deputy Director, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, UK), Richard James Saykally (Professor, Dept. of Experimental and Theoretical Physical Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, USA), Melinda Darby Dyar (Senior Scientist, Planetary Science Institute, USA) and Nils Mårtensson (Professor, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Sweden).
This prize, financed by the Helmholtz President’s Initiative and Networking Fund, was first awarded in 2012. Since then, the Executive Committee has selected researchers nominated by Helmholtz institutions twice a year. The current award winners were chosen on June 26, 2018. In autumn 2018, five more researchers will be selected through a second round of nominations. The deadline for applications for the next round of awards is September 28, 2018. The selection will then take place at the Executive Committee meeting on November 7, 2018.
You can find more information on the website of the Helmholtz Association.