Rivercyte founders Jochen Guck and Markéta Kubánková win prestigious awards
2024-12-01We are proud that in 2024 two of our founders received well-deserved recognition of their work: Jochen Guck has been awarded the Greve Prize and Markéta Kubánková received the “For Women in Science” L'Oréal-UNESCO award and the Hermann Neuhaus prize. Congratulations!
For more information read the press release from Leopoldina and the L'Oréal-UNESCO award website.
Jochen Guck receives the 2024 Greve Prize for groundbreaking cancer research
Prof. Dr. Jochen Guck was honored with the Greve Prize by the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. This award recognizes his pioneering research in cancer physics, where he has revolutionized our understanding of how cancer cells behave and metastasize. As the Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light and Research Group Leader at the Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin, Guck has led transformative work on the physical properties of cells and their interactions with surrounding tissue. He discovered that tumor cells become softer than healthy cells in order to navigate through dense tissue, enabling metastasis. This breakthrough challenges conventional views on cancer, showing that it is not only a genetic disease but also a mechanical one. Jochen Guck’s work on cancer cell mechanics has potential to improve cancer diagnosis and develop new therapeutic approaches.
Jochen Guck's speech at the Leopoldina award ceremony.
Photo © Markus Scholz, Leopoldina.
Markéta Kubánková receives 2024 For Women in Science L'Oréal-UNESCO prize and Hermann Neuhaus award for her research on how physical properties of cells change during disease
In November, Kubánková was honored with the “For Women in Science” award, presented by the L'Oréal Foundation, the German UNESCO Commission, and the German Humboldt Network. Kubánková was recognized for her research on the mechanical properties of cells from the human body, specifically red blood cells and cells from intestinal biopsies of cancer patients. She investigated how blood cells change during diseases such as COVID-19, and how the mechanical properties of cells from a colon biopsy may be used as a biomarker for colon cancer. Deformability cytometry played a key role in the studies. The Hermann Neuhaus prize was awarded to Kubánková by the Max Planck Society for her research with significant potential for application. Her findings on how the mechanical properties change during different diseases are an important step towards application of deformability cytometry as a diagnostic technology.
Markéta Kubánková receiving her prize at the For Women in Science award ceremony in Berlin.
Photo © Thomas Rafalzy.