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Simon Elsässer has been appointed as an Alexander von Humboldt Professor

Biochemist Prof. Dr. Simon Elsässer will receive five years of funding to strengthen and expand the key research area “Signals of Life” at the University of Freiburg.

Biochemist Prof. Dr. Simon Elsässer from the Karolinska Institutet in Solna, Sweden, is one of this year’s recipients of an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship. He is one of the world’s leading scientists in the technological and methodological advancement of epigenetics and synthetic biology. With the funding of 5 million euros, Elsässer will further strengthen and expand the key research area ‘Signals of Life’ at the University of Freiburg over the next five years.

“We are delighted that Simon Elsässer has been awarded the Humboldt Professorship 2026,” says Prof. Dr. Kerstin Krieglstein, Rector of the University of Freiburg. “The fact that he is able to join us now as part of the Humboldt Professorship is a particularly fortunate coincidence: Our Centre for Integrative Biological Signalling Studies (CIBSS) received confirmation of its continued funding in May. Simon Elsässer will thus have an ideal environment for his innovative, ground-breaking research and will be able to make a significant contribution to further strengthening the Cluster of Excellence and our entire key research area ‘Signals of Life’.”

“This is where my keen interest in epigenetics and the existing research priorities at the University of Freiburg come together in an ideal way. The funding from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation opens up unique opportunities for me to establish a long-term, visionary research programme in Freiburg.”

How cells read their blueprint: Molecular mechanisms of cellular decision-making and differentiation

Elsässer’s research focuses on how human cells interpret their genetic blueprint in order to develop the right embryonic structures at the right time during embryonic development. To do this, cells use both information from their past and signals from their current environment. Elsässer develops innovative methods and model systems to understand how cells process the diverse information available at the molecular level and use it to determine, for example, their long-term differentiation path. If cells “forget” their original purpose, this can lead to the development of tumours, among other things. Elsässer works with a very broad spectrum of methods ranging from genomics and proteomics to synthetic biology in order to get to the bottom of these molecular processes in human cells. He works on fundamental questions as well as on the translation of research results into clinical applications.

Further information

About Simon Elsässer

Simon Elsässer is an associate professor at the Karolinska Institutet in Solna, Sweden, where he took up a group leader position in 2015 as part of the Science for Life Laboratory Fellows Programme. He completed his PhD at Rockefeller University in New York, USA, between 2007 and 2011, followed by a postdoc in Cambridge, United Kingdom.

He has been awarded numerous prizes and scholarships, including the Swedish Svedberg Prize, the College for Life Science Fellowship of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, the Wallenberg Academy Fellowship and the Future Research Leader Fellowship of the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research. He has also successfully secured an ERC Starting Grant and an ERC Consolidator Grant.

About the Alexander von Humboldt professorship

The Alexander von Humboldt Professorship is Germany’s most highly endowed science award and is awarded exclusively to top researchers who are world leaders in their field, work abroad and are then expected to move to Germany on a long-term basis to take up the professorship. The Humboldt Professorship is awarded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation  and funded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space. It enables long-term, forward-looking research to be carried out at universities and research institutions in Germany and makes a lasting contribution to Germany’s international competitiveness as a research hub. Since 2008, Humboldt Professorships have been awarded annually as part of the International Research Fund for Germany. In 2020, the Alexander von Humboldt Professorships for Artificial Intelligence (AI) were also established. The award is presented as soon as the appointment procedure for the professorship has been successfully completed.