Prof. Dr. Alexander Assmann (42), Senior Consultant & Head of Coronary Bypass Surgery at UKD's Department of Cardiac Surgery, received the Ernst Derra Prize, endowed with 7,500 euros. The award-winning project is a further milestone for the "Cardiovascular Biomaterials Engineering and Translational Research" working group in its research work on optimising biological cardiovascular implants. For the first time, it has been demonstrated in a living organism that a reduction in systemic antioxidant activity contributes to the calcifying degeneration of biological heart valves and vascular prostheses. This may lead to the development of new approaches for implant-protective therapies. We are particularly pleased that the eponymous Ernst Derra was a famous cardiac surgeon who also worked at Düsseldorf's University Hospital and who used a heart-lung machine here for the first time in 1955.
This year's Franz Köhler Prize for special achievements in research or clinical practice, also endowed with 7,500 euros, went to Prof. Dr. Udo Boeken (57), senior physician and head of the "Heart Transplantation / Heart Failure" department at the UKD's Department of Cardiac Surgery. His many years of research are aimed at optimising organ protection by modulating ischaemia-reperfusion damage in cardiac surgery.
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