Award ceremony of the Otto-Hahn Medal in Göttingen, June 21. From left to right: Dr. Asifa Akhtar (Scientific Vice-President of the Max Planck Society, Biology & Medicine Section), Dr. Lorenzo Duso, Dr. Christoph Zechner. © David Ausserhofer / Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
Every year, the Max Planck Society recognizes young researchers for outstanding scientific achievements in connection with their doctorates. The Otto Hahn Medal is endowed with 7,500 euros of prize money, and the aim is to motivate particularly talented individuals to pursue a university or research career. One of the awardees this year is Lorenzo Duso, a former PhD student in the research lab of Christoph Zechner at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics and the Center for Systems Biology Dresden. He received the medal for his PhD thesis on “Stochastic modeling and inference for compartmentalized biochemical systems.” Lorenzo says: “I have always been fascinated by how biological systems can function reliably despite the noisy dynamics of molecules and cellular structures. In the Zechner Group, I had the opportunity to combine scientific computing and data-driven methods to investigate this question in the context of the endosomal system and of cell population dynamics, for instance. This helped us understand how noise shapes the functioning of biological populations at multiple scales. For my next career phase, I decided to employ my quantitative skills in finance, specifically studying the interaction between financial risks and climate change.” The medal was awarded on the occasion of the Annual Meeting of the Max Planck Society on June 21, 2023, in Göttingen.
Congratulations from all of us!
The Max Planck Society honors up to 30 young scientists and researchers each year with the Otto Hahn Medal for outstanding scientific achievements since 1978. The award is named after the German chemist and Nobel laureate Otto Hahn (1879–1968), who was president of the MPG from 1948 to 1960.