TUM Humboldt Professor is appointed to top position
Matthias Tschöp takes over as CEO of Helmholtz Zentrum München
Prof. Matthias Tschöp was appointed to the TUM Chair for Metabolic Diseases in 2011 and was the first medical scientist to receive an Alexander von Humboldt professorship. At the same time he took over as head of the Institute for Diabetes and Obesity at the Helmholtz Zentrum München. Prior to that Tschöp had worked for over 12 years in the USA, among other things as a Visiting Professor at Yale University. Together with his research team, Tschöp works to explore the molecular fundamentals of diabetes and adipositas (obesity). He is particularly interested in the role of communication between the gastrointestinal tract and the brain in the regulation of sugar und lipid metabolisms. Based on this research he developed new active ingredients to combat diabetes and obesity which are currently in clinical trials.
TUM President Prof. Wolfgang A. Herrmann says: “After the successful era of Günther Wess, our TUM colleague Matthias Tschöp is starting out in an excellent position. TUM is by far the largest collaboration partner of the Helmholtz Zentrum München. In numerous joint professorial appointments – as with Prof. Tschöp – we have covered key strategic fields in Health and Medicine, especially in our School of Medicine and the School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan. This lively convergence of expertise, lived out every day, enriches the entire scientific landscape of Munich and has put Munich in international top positions, for example in diabetes and protein research.”
Six Humboldt professorships at TUM
The scientific achievements of Matthias Tschöp have been honored with numerous awards, including an ERC Advanced Grant, the Erwin-Schrödinger Prize, the Paul Martini Prize, the Innovation Award of the Endocrine Society as well as the Outstanding Scientific Achievement Awards of the American Diabetes Association and the Obesity Society. In 2017 the Leopoldina German National Academy of Sciences awarded him the Carus Medal, and in 2018 Professor Tschöp was inducted into the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften).
Matthias Tschöp holds one of six Humboldt professorships at TUM, which has the most Humboldt professorships of any university in Germany. In 2018 the information scientist Prof. Marco Caccamo of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA) was the sixth TUM professor to receive this honor. The Alexander von Humboldt professorship is endowed with five million Euros for five years. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation awards the prize with the objective of bringing international leading scientists to Germany, reflected by the visibly advanced level of internationalization at TUM.