Publication prize for Konrad Aden

Prof. Dr. Konrad Aden

Dr. Konrad Aden, Senior Clinician Scientist at the Cluster of Excellence PMI and specialist in internal medicine in Kiel, has been awarded one of three publication prizes for 2022 by the Else Kröner-Fresenius Foundation.

With the publication prize for 2022, the Else Kröner-Fresenius Foundation (EKFS) honors early-stage researchers for their outstanding publications, which have been produced with funding from the foundation. Each of the prizes is endowed with 10,000 Euros for use at the prizewinner’s private discretion. One of this year’s winners is PD Dr. Konrad Aden. He is a senior consultant at the Department of Internal Medicine I at the University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein (UKSH), Campus Kiel, working group head at the Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology (IKMB) at the UKSH and Kiel University (CAU) and member of the Cluster of Excellence “Precision Medicine in Chronic Inflammation” (PMI). In 2021, Aden was appointed to the renowned Else Kröner Clinician Scientist Professorship, which enables him to carry out his ambitious clinical-related research on the causes and mechanisms of chronic inflammatory bowel diseases in addition to patient care in the hospital.

@IKMB, Kiel University Microscopic image of inflamed intestinal tissue; on the right, the DNA repair mechanism is disrupted, resulting in increased tumor-promoting growth.

The scientist has been honored for a publication in the renowned scientific journal “Gastroenterology” (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34599932/). In this paper, the research team led by Aden discovered a novel mechanism that can interfere with DNA repair in people with chronic intestinal inflammation and thus lead to bowel cancer. It has long been known that cancer can develop from chronic intestinal inflammation. However, precisely how this occurs has hardly been researched. The present study was able to demonstrate a new link between inflammation, disturbed cell division and repair of the genetic material. Further studies will be conducted on this basis to examine how the new findings can be used for the prevention of bowel cancer.

More information:
How chronic intestinal inflammation can cause cancer
Else Kröner-Fresenius Foundation

Participating Institutes