Stefan Niemann receives the Gardner Middlebrook Award 2021
The molecular biologist Prof. Stefan Niemann from the Research Center Borstel, Leibniz Lung Center was honored with the Gardner Middlebrook Lifetime Achievement Award. The award was presented online at the 41st Annual Congress of the European Society of Mycobacteriology (ESM) and recognizes his lifetime contribution in the field of genome research on the pathogens that cause tuberculosis. Prof. Stefan Niemann heads the research group "Molecular Epidemiology" in the research field of tuberculosis at the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF).
Stefan Niemann received his PhD in biology from the University of Bielefeld and his habilitation in molecular biology and microbiology from the University of Lübeck in 2004. Since 2014, Stefan Niemann has been Professor of Molecular and Experimental Mycobacteriology at the University of Lübeck and heads the corresponding research group at the FZB. Since 2021, he also is Director of the Priority Research Area Infections at the Research Center. At the DZIF, he is active as a scientist in the research field of tuberculosis since 2012. Stefan Niemann is one of the world's leading scientists in the field of genome research on tuberculosis pathogens and has made outstanding research contributions on the emergence and spread of multidrug-resistant (MDR) and extremely drug-resistant (XDR) tuberculosis pathogens and the application of genome analysis for diagnostics and surveillance. His work was awarded the Eva and Klaus Grohe Prize of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences in 2011, the main prize of the German Society for Hygiene and Microbiology in 2016, the Schleswig-Holstein Excellence Chair in 2017, and the DZIF Prize for Clinical Translational Infection Research in 2019.
Since 1996, the Gardner Middlebrook Lifetime Achievement Award has been presented to selected microbiologists and immunologists in the field of mycobacterial diseases. The award is sponsored by Becton Dickinson Diagnostic Systems and honours outstanding contributions in the study, diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis. The award is named after U.S. physician and professor Gardner Middlebrook (1915-1986), who was known for his dedication to biomedical research in the field of tuberculosis.
Source: Press release FZ Borstel
