Cerebral organoids: Reconstituting human brain development and disease in 3D cell culture

17:00 | Presentation of Certificates  

to the New Members of Class II – Life Sciences  

18:15 | Presentation of the Schleiden-Medaille 2025 

Laudatio
Professor Dr Bettina Rockenbach ML
President of the Leopoldina 

Short Presentation of the Laureate
"How does a salamander regenerate its limb?"
Prof. Dr. Elly Tanaka ML
Institute of Molecular Biotechnology, Vienna, Austria

18:45 | Leopoldina Lecture 

"Cerebral organoids: Reconstituting human brain development and disease in 3D cell culture"
Professor Dr Jürgen Knoblich ML
Deputy Director at IMBA – Institute of Molecular Biotechnology, Vienna, Austria

Jürgen Knoblich
is a German molecular biologist. He started his scientific career at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen where he worked on cell cycle control in Drosophila. In 1994 he moved to San Francisco to join the University of California where he discovered his interest in asymmetric cell division. In 1997, Jürgen Knoblich became a group leader at the Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna. In 2004, he moved to the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Here, he became a senior scientist and was appointed deputy director of the institute in 2005 and director from 2018–2024. Since 2021, he holds a professorship in Synthetic Biology at the Medical University of Vienna. Jürgen Knoblich is a full member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. He has received several awards including the Austrian Wittgenstein Prize, the Schrödinger Award of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and the Anniversary Award and the Sir Hans Krebs Medal of the Federation.