11 / 2025
From left to right: Professor Zoe Waibler, Acting Vice President of the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut, award winners Dr Arezoo Jamali, Dr Muhammed Burak Demircan, Dr Luca J. Zinser, Dr Bingqian Qu. Not in the picture: award winner Naphang Ho.
Source: Paul-Ehrlich-Institut
This year marks the 14th awarding of the Langen Junior Science Award by the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut and the Association for the Promotion of the Langen Science Award. The award is endowed with €2,000. The first prize goes to Arezoo Jamali and Naphang Ho for their work on the safety and side effects of short-term cultured CAR T cells. The second prize goes to Muhammed Burak Demircan and Luca J. Zinser for the development of novel gene therapeutic vectors that address CD8-positive T cells. The third prize is awarded to Bingqian Qu for research on the influence of host factor TMPRSS2 on the course of infection and further development of SARS-CoV-2.
The five prizewinners presented their research achievements and received their certificates as part of the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut's internal research retreat on 4 December 2025 at the Ronneburg Youth Centre. The Langen Junior Science Award is awarded by the Association for the Promotion of the Langen Science Award together with the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut. The award is financed by the Sparkasse Langen-Seligenstadt and supported by Stadtwerke Langen GmbH and the City of Langen. Langen's Mayor, Professor Jan Werner, congratulated the winners: "On behalf of the City of Langen, I would like to express my congratulations and compliments to this year's laureates for their achievements. The Langen Junior Science Award is an annual source of support for young and successful scientists. The city of Langen thus underlines how important research and teaching are to us. We would like to express our thanks to the Sparkasse Langen-Seligenstadt for funding this important prize again in 2025."
"Stadtwerke Langen is also happy to support this award because Langen is a significant location for science and innovation,"
added Uwe Linder, Managing Director of Stadtwerke Langen GmbH.
High-calibre medicinal product research is an integral part of the activities of the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut, the Federal Institute for Vaccines and Biomedicines. "The fact that the prizes have been awarded in such varied research areas as
CAR T cell therapy, targeted gene transfer, and
SARS-
CoV-2 research shows how diverse our research is in connection with our regulatory tasks as a higher federal authority,"
stated Institute President Professor Stefan Vieths "We would like to thank the prizewinners for their scientific contributions.
"
The first prize went to Arezoo Jamali and Naphang Ho from the research team headed by Professor Christian Buchholz, Head of the Molecular Biotechnology and Gene Therapy Research Group at the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut, for their first author publication "Early induction of cytokine release syndrome by rapidly generated CAR T cells in preclinical models", which was published in EMBO Molecular Medicine. Chimeric antigen receptor T cells (CAR T cells) are the body's own immune cells (T cells) that are genetically modified in the laboratory and can recognise and destroy tumour cells after being returned to the patient. However, a known risk of this innovative form of cancer immunotherapy is the potentially life-threatening cytokine release syndrome (CRS), in which large amounts of immune system messenger substances are released, which can lead to a disruption of the immune system.
Jamali, Ho, and their team investigated "rapidly generated" CAR T cells, which can be produced much faster than conventional CAR T cells but whose safety has so far been insufficiently tested. Using a mouse model and a cell-based test, the researchers demonstrated that rapidly generated CAR T cells exhibit effective anti-tumoural activity but bear a significantly higher risk of inducing CRS compared to conventional CAR T cells.
The findings underline the need to pay particular attention to the induction of CRS after the clinical application of rapidly generated CAR T cells while also having test systems available for a risk assessment of the cells before application. Producing CAR T cells in a manner that makes them quickly available for treatment is important to give more patients access to this potentially life-saving treatment. The test systems can help to reduce the risks of this treatment option for patients.
Muhammed Burak Demircan and Luca J. Zinser, also from the research team led by Professor Christian Buchholz, received the second prize for their first author publication "T-cell specific in vivo gene delivery with DART-AAVs targeted to CD8", published in Molecular Therapy. Gene therapies often use adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) as vectors to introduce therapeutic genes into target cells. A central goal of the current research is to modify these vectors in such a way that they target highly specific cell types while largely sparing other tissues, such as the liver.
Demircan, Zinser, and their team developed DART-AAVs ("DARPin-targeted AAVs"), whose capsid proteins are equipped with binding domains (DARPins) that specifically recognise the CD8 surface molecule. In cell culture and in mouse models, these vectors enabled highly selective gene transfer into CD8-positive T cells, while other cells were transduced significantly less frequently. At the same time, the uptake of the vectors into the liver could be greatly reduced.
A very high proportion of activated CD8 T cells was successfully genetically modified in conditioned mouse models after a single systemic administration of the DART-AAVs. The work thus demonstrates how precise, in vivo gene transfer into defined immune cell populations is technically possible. This research opens up new options for immunotherapies and gene therapies that could, for example, equip the body's own T cells with therapeutic genes directly in the organism – with potentially higher efficacy and lower off-target effects.
The third prize went to Bingqian Qu from the "Research Veterinary Medicine" section for his publication titled "TMPRSS2-mediated SARS-CoV-2 uptake boosts innate immune activation, enhances cytopathology, and drives convergent virus evolution", published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS). The team behind the publication studied the influence of the host factor TMPRSS2, a cellular serine protease, on the uptake of SARS-CoV-2 into cells and on the further course of infection.
TMPRSS2 was shown to significantly increase the uptake of SARS-CoV-2 into ACE2-expressing cells in cell culture models. Virus replication began earlier and was more intense, and the production of new virus particles increased. At the same time, the infected cells reacted with a pronounced activation of the innate immune response and greater cell damage.
The working group led by Qu was also able to show that TMPRSS2-dependent virus entry favours the development of characteristic, recurring mutations in the virus genome, in particular in the viral protein Nsp3. These changes improve the ability of the virus to evade the innate immune response. Similar effects have also been observed for TMPRSS2-like proteases from different mammalian species. The study thus contributes significantly to the understanding of how host factors influence the severity of infection, virus adaptation to the host, and the development of new variants – in humans as well as in zoonotic reservoirs and animal models.
The prizewinners presented their work in 15-minute lectures at the internal PEI retreat. Since 2006 the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut has organised an annual internal research retreat in order to promote scientific exchange and to support the Institute's young scientists.
Updated: 05.12.2025
