Professor Joachim Herz, M.D., from the Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas (USA), received this year's Heinrich Wieland Prize from Boehringer-Ingelheim (BI) for his exceptional work on lipoprotein receptors. He was awarded a EUR 50,000 tprize in a ceremony at the Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich, Germany.Lipoprotein receptors are key regulators of cholesterol and lipid metabolism. Among those are two types of receptors, the low-density-lipoprotein (LDL) receptor and LDL-receptor-related proteins (LRPs). Herz discovered LRP1, the first in the group of LRP receptors. LRP1 plays an important role in the uptake of lipids from food during digestion. LRP1 (scientifically named "˜chylomicron remnant receptor'). For more read on.
The prize is named after Nobel laureate Otto Wieland, a cousin of BI founder Albert Boehringer's wife.
