Six researchers from Kiel are among the Highly Cited Researchers 2021

Highly Cited Researcher in the category “Cross Field”: Prof. Dr Stefan Schreiber is the spokesperson for the Cluster of Excellence Precision Medicine in Chronic Inflammation (PMI), Director of the Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology at the CAU and UKSH, and Director of the Department of Internal Medicine I at the UKSH, Campus Kiel.

Professor Stefan Schreiber has been on the list of Highly Cited Researchers for eight years in a row since 2014, often even in two categories. Schreiber has focused his research for many years on the mechanisms of inflammation and the development of new treatments for chronic inflammatory diseases. Building on new molecular findings, he researches innovative approaches to prevent and treat these illnesses. On Schreiber’s initiative, the Inflammation at Interfaces network was formed in 2004, which was funded through the German Excellence Initiative from 2007 to 2018 and has been continued since 2019 as the Cluster of Excellence Precision Medicine in Chronic Inflammation (PMI). With the goal of treating inflammation holistically instead of focusing on a certain organ, Schreiber developed the idea of an interdisciplinary inflammation clinic. Patients have been treated according to this approach at the Comprehensive Center for Inflammation Medicine at the UKSH, Campus Kiel, since 2009. “We are developing new therapies to be more successful at treating chronic diseases. We therefore need to research intensively in order to improve,” emphasises Schreiber, who is currently involved in a study researching the long term effects of a COVID-19 infection. In 2005 Schreiber received the City of Kiel’s Science Prize; in 2020 he received the renowned Research Prize from the United European Gastroenterology Foundation (UEGF) umbrella organisation to develop new treatments for people with chronic inflammatory bowel diseases based on molecular nutritional intervention.

As a leading principle investigator, he has monitored over 80 clinical trials in the field of the chronic inflammatory bowel diseases ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, and was the lead investigator in over 50 of these. He is a member of numerous professional associations, has chaired multiple national and international conferences, is the co-editor of international journals and the author or co-author of more than 950 publications in scientific journals.

Highly Cited Researcher in the category “Neuroscience and Behavior”: Prof. Dr Ralf Baron heads the Section for Neurological Ache Research and Therapy at the Department of Neurology at the University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein (UKSH), Campus Kiel.

For around 30 years, Professor Ralf Baron has been exploring the mechanisms behind the formation and chronification of nerve pain, as well as the treatment of neuropathic pain syndromes. In the early 2000s he founded the “German Research Network on Neuropathic Pain” (DFNS). Large databases were established within this German-wide network and patients were precisely characterised according to their complaints. The network is now mainstream throughout Europe and pools research groups which are active in the field of nerve pain. This made it possible to form subgroups of patients who might benefit from a specific type of treatment. “It is a step towards personalised medicine in the field of treating pain,” Baron explains. Special techniques have been developed which help to identify the different originating mechanisms of pain. These techniques have been incorporated into the guidelines for clinical trials. Baron is currently working with his research team on investigating the mechanisms of nerve regeneration; he is looking for ways to encourage damaged nerves to mature again. “With a technique like this, we would take a major step towards managing to completely heal nerve pain,” says Baron.

Baron was awarded a Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for research at the University of California in San Francisco, is a co-publisher of and reviewer for numerous medical journals, has received multiple awards and prizes, and together with his research team has published over 400 original papers, review articles and book contributions. He is co-publisher of the book “Praktische Schmerztherapie” (Practical Pain Therapy), the fourth edition of which appeared in 2019. Baron has been spokesperson of the “German Research Network on Neuropathic Pain” since 2001, which aims to fundamentally improve medical treatment for people with nerve pain.

Highly Cited Researcher in the category “Cross Field”: Prof. Dr Ute Hentschel Humeida, is Professor of Marine Microbiology at the CAU, member of the steering group of the Collaborative Research Centre “Origin and Function of Metaorganisms” (CRC 1182) and heads the Research Unit “Marine Symbioses” at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel.

Professor Ute Hentschel Humeida has been the head of the Research Unit “Marine Symbioses” at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel since 2015. She has been researching symbiosis, which describes cohabitation between different species from which both species benefit, for around 20 years. Her area of expertise is marine sponges, which live in symbiosis with countless, often yet unknown microorganisms. “Sponge microbiomes are some of the most complex microbial consortia whatsoever. Sponges can be host to several thousand different species. Their metabolism and chemical composition is correspondingly diverse. This is not only of significance for marine ecology, but is also of interest to the pharmaceutical industry,” explains Hentschel Humeida, who conducted research in California/USA for ten years, including at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California, USA, one of the oldest, largest and most important marine research institutions in the world. Hentschel Humeida’s working group is focusing its research on gaining a better understanding of the physiology, metabolism and molecular mechanisms of the interaction between sponges and their microbial partners. Today, the roughly 8,500 known species of sponge populate all wet habitats of the earth, from coastal regions through to the deep seas, even rivers and lakes. “Sponges dominate vast areas of the sea floor in the deep sea. Many of these sponge-filled regions have only been recently discovered. We still don’t know nearly enough about these ecosystems,” says Hentschel Humeida.

She has published around 200 articles in scientific journals as author or co-author, is the co-editor of scientific journals and an expert for the German Research Foundation (DFG), the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and international institutions.

Highly Cited Researcher in the category “Clinicial Medicine”: Prof. Dr Axel Hauschild, member of the Cluster of Excellence PMI, is a senior physician and head of the Dermatological Oncology working group at the Department of Dermatology, Venerology and Allergology, UKSH, Campus Kiel.

Since his time as an assistant physician over 30 years ago in the Department of Dermatology, Venerology and Allergology, UKSH, Campus Kiel, Professor Axel Hauschild has been interested in skin cancer, particularly in extremely aggressive malignant melanomas. Over the past few years, the introduction of new medications has been able to significantly improve treatment in advanced stages of this disease. “The 5-year survival rate, which is used as a measure for prognosis, was just 5 percent in 2010 for advanced melanoma, and is now at 52 percent. No other type of tumour has made this kind of progress up to now,” emphasises Hauschild, who played a major role in this success. Hauschild was the lead investigator on over 120 clinical studies on various types of skin cancer, has been invited to more than 700 conferences around the world and has published upwards of 400 articles in scientific journals.

In recognition of his clinical and scientific achievements for skin cancer treatment, Hauschild received the German Skin Cancer Prize in 2003 and the German Cancer Prize in 2011 from the German Cancer Society. He is on the board of the European Association of Dermato-Oncology and the Melanoma World Society, was the president of the German Cancer Congress twice and in 2021 he was president of the World Congress of Melanoma for the second time, where he was elected president of the Melanoma World Society (MWS). The MWS is the successor society to the WHO Melanoma Group. It aims to coordinate research activities and improve the treatment of people suffering with skin cancer around the world.

Highly Cited Researcher in the category “Cross Field”: Prof. Dr Stefan Rose-John, member of the Cluster of Excellence PMI, Director of the Institute of Biochemistry at the CAU and head of the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 877 “Proteolysis as a Regulatory Event in Pathophysiology”.

Professor Stefan Rose-John is an internationally sought-after expert on the cytokine Interleukin-6 (IL-6). The biochemist identified the crucial importance of this messenger substance in inflammatory processes over 20 years ago and has since been systematically researching its structure and mechanism. In 2001 he published the spatial structure with which IL-6 binds to one of its receptors in the renowned scientific journal Science and thereby laid the foundations for further research. He also verified that Interleukin-6 works via two signalling pathways. The pivotal trigger for chronic inflammation is the trans-signalling pathway he discovered, which involves the binding of an IL-6 receptor that is soluble in blood and tissue and can stimulate all cells in the human body, while processes of cell regeneration and the normal protective immune response are regulated via the classic signalling pathway. This discovery enabled the targeted inhibition of only those signals from Interleukin-6 which promote inflammation.

Rose-John developed the designer protein sgp130Fc, which specifically blocks the Interleukin-6 trans-signalling pathway and thereby inhibits inflammation. This is the first time ever that it has been possible to inhibit the inflammatory activity of a cytokine like Interleukin-6 without compromising its protective and regenerative effects. Under the name of Olamkicept, the protein has already been tested in phase 2 clinical trials at the UKSH under the leadership of Professor Stefan Schreiber and in one additional study in China on people with chronic inflammatory bowel diseases with extremely positive results. A phase 3 clinical trial is currently being prepared, which is the prerequisite for the approval of Olamkicept as a pharmaceutical product.

“What distinguishes my working group and makes us extremely valuable partners for many labs around the world is that we have the best molecular tools to investigate the signalling pathways of IL-6,” emphasises Rose-John, who has headed the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 877 “Proteolysis as a Regulatory Event in Pathophysiology” since 2010.

Rose-John is an elected member of the Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Hamburg and in 2005 he was awarded the City of Kiel’s Science Prize, as well as the Jacob-Henle Medal from the University of Göttingen in 2019.

Prof. Dr. Stefan Schreiber
Department of Internal Medicine I, UKSH
Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology, CAU Kiel, UKSH
0431/500-15101
s.schreiber@mucosa.de

Prof. Dr. Ralf Baron
Department of Neurology, UKSH
Section for Neurological Ache Research and Therapy
0431/500-23805
ralf.baron@uksh.de

Prof. Dr. Ute Hentschel Humeida
GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel
Research Area 3: Marine Ecology
0431/600-4480
uhentschel@geomar.de

Prof. Axel Hauschild
Department of Dermatology, Venerology and Allergology, UKSH
Dermatological Oncology working group
0431/500-21130
ahauschild@dermatology.uni-kiel.de

Prof. Dr. Marco Liserre
Institute of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology
Power electronics
0431/880-6100
ml@tf.uni-kiel.de

Prof. Stefan Rose-John
Executive Director of the Institute of Biochemistry
Kiel University (CAU)
0431/880-3336
rosejohn@biochem.uni-kiel.de

Kerstin Nees
Press and Public Relations, Cluster of Excellence PMI
presse.cluster@uv.uni-kiel.de
+49 431/880 4682
Cluster of Excellence PMI

Oliver Grieve
Speaker, University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein
Oliver.Grieve@uksh.de
0173/4055 000
UKSH

Press, Communication and Marketing Services Department for Press, Digital and Science Communication
presse@uv.uni-kiel.de
+49 (0)431/880-2104
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