Hartmut Wekerle receives the honorary doctorate of the University of Hamburg

Great honor for the medical doctor and neurobiologist from Martinsried

May 13, 2013

Prof. Dr. Hartmut Wekerle, emeritus director at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology receives the honorary doctorate of the Medical Faculty of the University of Hamburg. The honor is bestowed on Hartmut Wekerle and his colleague, Prof. Dr. Irun R. Cohen from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. Both scientists have been joined for a long time by their common work in the field of immunology. Today, Wekerle and Cohen are considered to be the intellectual fathers of the concept of immune regulation. The honorary doctorates are awarded on May 13 within the scope of a symposium at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE).

Hartmut Wekerle’s scientific work focusses entirely on the research of multiple sclerosis. In Germany alone, there are approx. 120,000 people afflicted by this disease, where misdirected cells of the immune system attack the body's own nervous system. Once the immune cells have entered the brain and the spinal cord, they start their attack on the nerve cells. Depending on the place of this attack, the results can be paralysis, dysfunction of sentiment or visual impairments. Despite decades of research, the reasons for this attack are still mostly unknown.

By using most modern methods Hartmut Wekerle and his group made numerous groundbreaking findings. For instance, they discovered new targets of the immune cells, showed how immune cells enter the nervous system, or that inflammatory diseases of the brain are possibly preceded by infections of the bowel. In an outstanding cooperation with the Clinical Neuroimmunology of the University Clinic of Großhadern (LMU), results contribute to a better understanding of the disease and help to develop new and more effective therapies.

Hartmut Wekerle studied medicine at the Freiburg University, where he achieved his PhD in 1971. Subsequently he worked at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel. Starting in 1973, Hartmut Wekerle worked at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg. From 1982 on, he led the clinical research group for multiple sclerosis of the Max Planck Society. In 1988, Hartmut Wekerle was appointed director of the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology.

Numerous prices were awarded to Hartmut Wekerle for his scientific merit, among them the Ernst Young Award for Science and Research, the Louis D. Award – the highest scientific award in France, and the Reinhard Koselleck-Project by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. In June 2011 he received a Hertie-Senior-Research professorship in the field of neurobiology. This professorship complements the financing by the Max Planck Society and enables Hartmut Wekerle to continue his work since his retirement in 2012.