The Hans and Ilse Breuer Foundation awards annual prizes to excellent young scientists.
Award winners
Here you can find out which outstanding publications have received awards from the Hans and Ilse Breuer Foundation. In addition to information on the award winner, you will also find a brief description of the respective publication.
Title of the publication
„Medin co-aggregtes with vascular amyloid-ß in Alzheimer’s disease“
in: Nature, Dezember 2022
Title of the publication
„Impact of low-value medications on quality of life, hospitalization and costs – A longitudinal analysis of patients living with dementia“
in: Alzheimer’s & Dementia (2023;1-12)
Title of the publication
„Long-term diazepam treatment enhances microglial spine engulfment and impairs cognitive performance via the mitochondrial 18kDa translocator protein (TSPO)“
in: NATURE NEUROSCIENCE, March 2022, 317-329
Title of the publication
„Feasibility of a standard cognitive assessment in European academic memory clinics“
in: Alzheimer’s & Dementia (2022; 1-11)
Title of the publication
„Sirtuin-1 sensitive lysine-136 acetylation drives phase separation and pathological aggregaion of TDP-43“
in: NATURE COMMUNICATIONS (2022); 13
Title of the publication
„Microglial activation states drive glucose uptake and FDG-PET alterations in neurodegenerative diseases“
in: Science Translational Medicine 13, eabe5640, 13 October 2021
Title of the publication
„Highly efficient intercellular spreading of protein misfolding mediated by viral ligand-receptor interactions“
in: Nature Communications, (2021)12:5739, October 19, 2021
Title of the publication
„Microglia jointly degrade fibrillar alpha-synuclein cargo by distribution through tunneling nanotubes“
in: CellPress 2021, Cell 184, 5089–5106, September 30, 2021
Title of the publication
„Medin aggregation causes cerebrovascular dysfunction in aging wild-type mice“
in: PNAS, September 22, 2020, vol. 117, no. 38, 23925-23931
Title of the publication
„RhoA drives actin compaction to restrict axon regeneration and astrocyte reactivity after CNS injury“
in: CellPress, 3438 Neuron 109, 3436–3455, November 3, 2021
Title of the publication
„Loss of TREM2 function increases amyloidseeding but reduces plaque-associated ApoE“
in: Nat Neurosci 22, 191–204, January 7, 2019
Short summary of the paper
Alois Alzheimer identified three key hallmarks of the disease: the presence of amyloid plaques and tau tangles, as well as increased microglia – immune cells responsible for destruction of invading pathogens in the brain. The microglial gene TREM2 was identified to play a crucial role in sustaining the microglial response in disease conditions. Using an amyloid plaque depositing mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), I found that that loss of TREM2 function increased early plaque accumulation by preventing microglial clearance of plaques. APOE, the strongest genetic risk factor for AD, plays an essential role in promoting plaque formation and its expression is mainly reported in astrocytes, another regulator of inflammation. My studies showed that not only was APOE induced in microglia around plaques, but was also strongly reduced upon TREM2 deficiency. This suggests therapeutic strategies must consider TREM2-APOE interaction as it may protectively modulate plaque clearance, but in parallel exacerbate amyloid pathology.
