Katharina Landfester, Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, Germany, has received the Liebig Memorial Medal 2024 from the German Chemical Society (GDCh). The award is endowed with EUR 7,500 and was presented at the 133rd Assembly of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians (GDNÄ) in Potsdam, Germany, on September 14, 2024. The GDCh awards the Liebig Memorial Medal for outstanding achievements in the field of chemistry.
Katharina Landfester received the award for her remarkable work in the field of organic polymers, in particular, for the development and application of nanocapsules for the targeted administration of drugs and as building blocks for the construction of artificial cells. The prize also recognized her great commitment to the chemical community and to the GDCh.
Katharina Landfester, born 1969 in Bochum, Germany, studied chemistry at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, and at the Ecole d’Application des Hautes Polymères, Strasbourg, France. She completed her Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 1995 at the University of Mainz after working with Hans-Wolfgang Spiess at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research. This was followed by research stays at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research and at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA, before she joined the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Golm, Germany.
In 2002, Landfester completed her habilitation in physical chemistry at the University of Potsdam. In 2003, she took up a Professorship of Macromolecular Chemistry at the University of Ulm, Germany. In 2008, she moved to the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research as Director. She has also served as Managing Director there since 2014. In addition, she has been co-founder of the start-up LigniLabs, Wiesbaden, Germany, in 2022.
Among other honors, Landfester received the Liebig scholarship of the German Chemical Industry Fund (FCI, Fonds der Chemischen Industrie) in 1998 and the Reimund Stadler Prize from the GDCh as well as the Prize of the Dr. Hermann Schnell Stiftung in 2001. From 2007 to 2015, she was a board member of the GDCh Division of Macromolecular Chemistry, and from 2016 to 2023, she served as a member of the GDCh Board.
Selected Publications
- Manipulation of Serum Protein Adsorption by Nanoengineered Biomaterials Influences Subsequent Immune Responses,
Richard Bright, Rahul M. Visalakshan, Johanna Simon, Anne Mari Rokstad, Arthur Ghazaryan, Svenja Morsbach, Andrew Hayles, Volker Mailänder, Katharina Landfester, Krasimir Vasilev,
ACS Biomater. Sci. Eng. 2024.
https://doi.org/10.1021/acsbiomaterials.4c01103 - Albumin nanocapsules and nanocrystals for efficient intracellular drug release,
Sharafudheen Pottanam Chali, Jaana Westmeier, Franziska Krebs, Shuai Jiang, Friederike Pauline Neesen, Doğa Uncuer, Mario Schelhaas, Stephan Grabbe, Christian Becker, Katharina Landfester, Kerstin Steinbrink,
Nanoscale Horiz. 2024.
https://doi.org/10.1039/d4nh00161c - Fine‐Tuning the Microstructure and Photophysical Characteristics of Fluorescent Conjugated Copolymers Using Photoalignment and Liquid‐Crystal Ordering,
Yuping Shi, Katharina Landfester, Stephen M. Morris,
Adv. Sci. 2024.
https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202407117 - Plastics of the Future? The Impact of Biodegradable Polymers on the Environment and on Society,
Tobias P. Haider, Carolin Völker, Johanna Kramm, Katharina Landfester, Frederik R. Wurm,
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2018, 58, 50–62.
https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201805766 - Protein adsorption is required for stealth effect of poly(ethylene glycol)- and poly(phosphoester)-coated nanocarriers,
Susanne Schöttler, Greta Becker, Svenja Winzen, Tobias Steinbach, Kristin Mohr, Katharina Landfester, Volker Mailänder, Frederik R. Wurm,
Nat. Nanotechnol. 2016, 11, 372–377.
https://doi.org/10.1038/NNANO.2015.330 - Rapid formation of plasma protein corona critically affects nanoparticle pathophysiology,
Stefan Tenzer, Dominic Docter, Jörg Kuharev, Anna Musyanovych, Verena Fetz, Rouven Hecht, Florian Schlenk, Dagmar Fischer, Klytaimnistra Kiouptsi, Christoph Reinhardt, Katharina Landfester, Hansjörg Schild, Michael Maskos, Shirley K. Knauer, Roland H. Stauber,
Nat. Nanotechnol. 2013, 8, 772–781.
https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2013.181
