Meet our 2021 Scientific Fellowship Awardees

We are delighted to announce the selection of our 2021 Bayer Foundation Fellowship Awardees
Congratulations!
In our work, we strive to enhance the impact of science for the benefit of society. With a focus on embedding a collaborative mindset in the next generation of scientific leaders, our fellowships provide opportunities for international exchange for brilliant young minds. In 2021, we selected 25 young people for this unique experience and provided more than 175,000 € in funding.
Our 2022 program will open for application on 28/02/2022 and you can find more information here under Fellowships and Stipends.
Meet our 2021 fellows here:
Otto Bayer Fellowships in Drug Discovery

Steitz Philipp
From RWTH Aachen, Germany, going to Prince Felipe Research Centre, Spain
Project: Development of multifunctional nanomedicines to successfully modulate tumor-stroma-immune interactions

Jana Muriel Braunger
From University of Greifswald, Germany, going to Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MA, USA
Project: Use of machine learning (ML) to predict the effects of drug combinations

Eva Krötenheerdt
From Julius-Maximilians-University of Würzburg, Germany, going to Brown University, RI, USA
Project: Investigation of ubiquitin signaling in CarT cells for better understanding of the side effects of cancer immunotherapy

Svenja Lützow
From RWTH Aachen, Germany, going to ETH Zürich, Switzerland
Project: Development of a novel microfluidic platform to enable co-culturing of 3D tumor microtissues together with suspended immune cells

Tristan Vornbäumen
From Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen, Germany, going to Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, MA, USA
Project: Performance of genome-wide genetic screens to systematically interrogate how different pigmentation phenotypes introduce vulnerabilities in melanocytes and melanoma cells

Jacqueline Berner
From Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen, Germany, going to Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, MA, USA
Project: Performance of next generation CRISPR screens and chemical proteomics to identify genes and compounds that selectively regulate organellar reactive oxygen species (ROS)

Hannes Kucher
From Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany, going to ETH Zürich, Switzerland
Project: Exploration of new methods for studying the transfer of unknown fluorinated motifs to small organic molecules

Maiia Shulman
From Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, going to Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MA, USA
Project: Studying the evolvement of previously quiescent breast cancer cells into aggressive metastatic derivatives by using various human breast cancer cell lines

Dominik Marcel Wieland
From Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Germany, going to Rensselaer Astrobiology Research and Education (RARE) Center, NY, USA
Project: Development of a cost efficient, fast, and versatile method for monitoring the health of bioreactors to ensure optimal production of specific drugs

Taddäus Strunden
From University of Heidelberg, Germany, going to University of Notre Dame, IN, USA
Project: Research on the design and synthesis of isoform-selective heat shock protein inhibitors towards the development of new drugs for cancer therapy
Jeff Schell Fellowships for Agricultural Science

Yang Ding
From University of Göttingen, Germany, going to Netherlands Institute of Ecology, Netherlands
Project: Measuring the dynamics and drivers of carbon storage in soil to understand the role of carbon in soil microbe life cycles

Swathi Ramapuram
From University of Hohenheim, Germany, going to Aarhus University, Denmark
Project: Studying the adaptation of plants to soil-specific microbiota by analyzing plant growth as a fitness variable

Steffen Heuvel
From Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany, going to University of California, CA, USA
Project: Mechanistic studies of the nickel-catalyzed oxidation of inactivated C(sp3)-H bonds for the synthesis of new compounds used for crop protection or for novel pharmaceuticals

Oyedibu Oloyede
From University of Ibadan, Nigeria, going to Institute for Crop and Soil Science Julius Kühn-Institut (JKI), Germany
Project: Monitoring heavy metals in soil originated from the Ibadan area in Nigeria and their effects on the environment and human health

Saudat Alishayeva
From Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, Germany, going to Harvard University, MA, USA
Project: Combining epigenetic measurements and behavioral assays to understand the molecular network contributing to behavioral preferences in animals and humans
Carl Duisberg Fellowships for Medical Sciences

Mikal Obed
From Hannover Medical School (MHH), Germany, going to Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Toronto, Canada
Project: Studying the role of MicroRNA expression in under-developed lung tissue of newborns and the effect of Amniotic Fluid Stem Cell Extracellular Vesicles (AFSC-EVs) to release MicroRNAs

Lukas Heeke
From RWTH Aachen University, Germany, going to Harvard Medical School, MA, USA
Project: Studying the causes and the effects of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the gut of patients with sleeping disorders and finding ways of preventing ROS-caused lethality

Marvin Ziegler
From University Heidelberg, Germany, going to Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, MA, USA
Project: Performing a comprehensive compound screen in neurons derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to identify target molecules for treating spastic paraplegia in children

Simone Kaltenhauser
From University of Regensburg, Germany, going to Yale School of Medicine, CT, USA
Project: Elucidation of correlations between brain microstructures and adolescents’ health, gender differences and educational success

Birte Schmid
From Karolinska Insitutet / Julius-Maximilians-University of Würzburg, Germany, going to Stanford University School of Medicine, CA, USA
Project: Studying the role of amyloid precursor protein (APP) in Alzheimer disease

Anna Sophia Spinner
From Ruprecht-Karls-University, Heidelberg, Germany, going to Karolinska Institute, Sweden
Project: Conducting genome-wide screens in human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and differentiated tissue to identify microproteins controlling pluripotency and differentiation processes

Jean-Marc Kutz
From Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg, Germany, going to University Mahajanga, Madagascar
Project: Applying a PCR Luminex array to analyze the distribution of the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) and Female Genital Schistosomiasis (FGS) in the female population of Madagascar

Saeedeh Shamsaddini Lori
From Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Iran, going to University of Hohenheim, Germany
Project: Adaptation of molecular methods to analyze the risk and the distribution of infections with Cystic Echinococcosis (CE) in endemic regions in Iran

Daniel Ehis Aigbonoga
From University of Ibadan, Nigeria, going to Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, Germany
Project: Adaptation and transfer of good practices in perioperative management of patients in Germany to the specific conditions of Nigeria

Adewale Boluwatife
From University of Ibadan, Nigeria, going to Institute of Translational Genomics, Helmholtz Zentrum Munich, Germany
Project: Analyzing genetic risk factors common to Osteoarthritis (OA) and Alzheimer’s dementia (AD) through genotyping of samples derived from Nigerian patients