{"id":30055,"date":"2025-06-06T10:06:33","date_gmt":"2025-06-06T08:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uni-freiburg.de\/en\/?p=30055"},"modified":"2025-06-06T10:06:34","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T08:06:34","slug":"simon-elsasser-named-alexander-von-humboldt-professor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uni-freiburg.de\/en\/simon-elsasser-named-alexander-von-humboldt-professor\/","title":{"rendered":"Simon Els\u00e4sser named Alexander von Humboldt Professor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Freiburg, 05\/06\/2025<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biochemist Simon Els\u00e4sser will receive five years of funding to strengthen and expand the key research area \u201cSignals of Life\u201d at the University of Freiburg.<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Els\u00e4sser is one of the world’s leading scientists in the technological and methodological development of epigenetics and synthetic biology. Photo: Ulf Sirbon<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Biochemist Prof. Dr. Simon Els\u00e4sser<\/strong> from the Karolinska Institutet in Solna, Sweden, is one of this year’s recipients of an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship. He is one of the world’s leading scientists in the technological and methodological advancement of epigenetics and synthetic biology. With the funding of 5 million euros, Els\u00e4sser will further strengthen and expand the key research area \u2018Signals of Life\u2019 at the University of Freiburg over the next five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are delighted that Simon Els\u00e4sser has been awarded the Humboldt Professorship 2026,\u201d says Prof. Dr. Kerstin Krieglstein<\/strong>, Rector of the University of Freiburg. \u201cThe fact that he is able to join us now as part of the Humboldt Professorship is a particularly fortunate coincidence: Our Centre for Integrative Biological Signalling Studies (CIBSS) received confirmation of its continued funding in May. Simon Els\u00e4sser will thus have an ideal environment for his innovative, ground-breaking research and will be able to make a significant contribution to further strengthening the Cluster of Excellence and our entire key research area \u2018Signals of Life\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\u201cThis is where my keen interest in epigenetics and the existing research priorities at the University of Freiburg come together in an ideal way. The funding from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation opens up unique opportunities for me to establish a long-term, visionary research programme in Freiburg.\u201d\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\tProf. Dr. Simon Els\u00e4sser\t\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\tKarolinska Institutet, Solna (Sweden)\t\t\t<\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

How cells read their blueprint: Molecular mechanisms of cellular decision-making and differentiation<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Els\u00e4sser\u2019s research focuses on how human cells interpret their genetic blueprint in order to develop the right embryonic structures at the right time during embryonic development. To do this, cells use both information from their past and signals from their current environment. Els\u00e4sser develops innovative methods and model systems to understand how cells process the diverse information available at the molecular level and use it to determine, for example, their long-term differentiation path. If cells \u201cforget\u201d their original purpose, this can lead to the development of tumours, among other things. Els\u00e4sser works with a very broad spectrum of methods ranging from genomics and proteomics to synthetic biology in order to get to the bottom of these molecular processes in human cells. He works on fundamental questions as well as on the translation of research results into clinical applications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is where my keen interest in epigenetics and the existing research priorities at the University of Freiburg come together in an ideal way,\u201d says Els\u00e4sser. \u201cThe funding from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation opens up unique opportunities for me to establish a long-term, visionary research programme in Freiburg.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n\t\tAbout Simon Els\u00e4sser<\/strong><\/strong>\t<\/p>\n\t

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\n\t\tSimon Els\u00e4sser is an associate professor at the Karolinska Institutet in Solna, Sweden, where he took up a group leader position in 2015 as part of the Science for Life Laboratory Fellows Programme. He completed his PhD at Rockefeller University in New York, USA, between 2007 and 2011, followed by a postdoc in Cambridge, United Kingdom.

He has been awarded numerous prizes and scholarships, including the Swedish Svedberg Prize, the College for Life Science Fellowship of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, the Wallenberg Academy Fellowship and the Future Research Leader Fellowship of the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research. He has also successfully secured an ERC Starting Grant and an ERC Consolidator Grant.\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\n\t\tAbout the Alexander von Humboldt professorship<\/strong><\/strong> \t<\/p>\n\t

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\n\t\tThe Alexander von Humboldt Professorship is Germany’s most highly endowed science award and is awarded exclusively to top researchers who are world leaders in their field, work abroad and are then expected to move to Germany on a long-term basis to take up the professorship. The Humboldt Professorship is awarded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation  and funded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space. It enables long-term, forward-looking research to be carried out at universities and research institutions in Germany and makes a lasting contribution to Germany’s international competitiveness as a research hub. Since 2008, Humboldt Professorships have been awarded annually as part of the International Research Fund for Germany. In 2020, the Alexander von Humboldt Professorships for Artificial Intelligence (AI) were also established. The award is presented as soon as the appointment procedure for the professorship has been successfully completed.\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Further Information<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\tPress release of the Humboldt Foundation\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\n\t\tContact\t<\/p>\n\t

\n\t\tUniversity and Science Communications<\/strong>\t<\/p>\n\t

\n\t\tUniversity of Freiburg
Tel.: +49 761 203 4302<\/a>
E-Mail: kommunikation@zv.uni-freiburg.de<\/a>\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Biochemist Prof. Dr. Simon Els\u00e4sser from the Karolinska Institutet in Solna, Sweden, is one of this year’s recipients of an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship. He is one of the world’s leading scientists in the technological and methodological advancement of epigenetics and synthetic biology. With the funding of 5 million euros, Els\u00e4sser will further strengthen and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":30056,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_trash_the_other_posts":false,"editor_notices":[],"_show_in_pageentry_slider":true,"_pageentry_slider_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43,41,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-awarded","category-news","category-signals-of-life"],"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/uni-freiburg.de\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/61\/Simon_Elsasser_C_Ulf_Sirbon-scaled.jpg","featured_image_alt":"Portrait of Prof. Dr. Simon Els\u00e4sser","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uni-freiburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uni-freiburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uni-freiburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uni-freiburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uni-freiburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30055"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/uni-freiburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30065,"href":"https:\/\/uni-freiburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30055\/revisions\/30065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uni-freiburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uni-freiburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uni-freiburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uni-freiburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}