The Dr Maresch-Klingelhöffer-Prize 2025
Award winners
The Dr Maresch-Klingelhöffer Research Prize 2025 was awarded to Dr Romain Sigaud from Jena University Hospital during a formal ceremony. Dr Sigaud researches pilocystic astrocytomas – the most common form of low-grade brain tumours in children. His work shows how certain molecular processes influence the behaviour of these tumours and how they can be specifically interrupted.
Using modern analytical methods, he was able to identify new targets for therapies that could help avoid stressful treatments and better control the disease in the future. This is an important step towards more individualised and gentler therapies for affected children.
Dr. Sigaud on his motivation for paediatric oncology research:
“Because every child deserves the chance to grow, dream and live the childhood they deserve.”
Dr. Sigaud’s work was published here: Multi-omics dissection of MAPK-driven senescence unveils therapeutic vulnerabilities in KIAA1549::BRAF-fusion pediatric low-grade glioma models
The Dr. Maresch-Klingelhöffer Prize 2024 was awarded to PD Dr. Dominik Sturm. He was recognised by the jury for the widespread use of a test procedure developed in Heidelberg that enables the precise diagnosis of brain tumours in children and adolescents. The international study “Molecular Neuropathology 2.0”, coordinated by Dr. Sturm at the Hopp Children’s Tumour Centre Heidelberg (KiTZ), was able to show on the basis of over 1,000 examined brain tumours in children and adolescents that the use of state-of-the-art molecular genetic analyses enables a more precise diagnosis, which in turn improves the prediction of the course of the disease and allows possible targets for targeted therapy to be identified.
The groundbreaking study results have contributed to the fact that these analyses are now reimbursed by health insurance companies in Germany and are therefore a prime example of the direct transfer of scientific progress into clinical practice.
On 25 October 2022, the Chairman of our Foundation, Dr Jürgen Vogt, presented this year’s Dr Maresch-Klingelhöffer Award to Dr Johanna Theruvath. She was chosen by the jury for this award because of her research success at Stanford University against aggressive brain tumours in children.
With her research, Dr. Theruvath has succeeded in taking an important step towards improving the chances of cure for children diagnosed with the very aggressive Atypical Teratoid/Rhabdoid Tumour (ATRT), which has been difficult to cure up to now. The results of her research work are highly relevant and can now be tested in clinical trials as the next step.
Dr. Constanze Schneider was awarded the Maresch-Klingelhöffer Prize at the ceremony to mark the 25th anniversary of the Frankfurt Foundation for Children with Cancer in November 2019.
The prize has been awarded since 2008. It has its origins in an endowment from Dr. Otto Maresch and Doris Maresch-Klingehöffer. Endowed with 10,000 euros, the award honours the best work by young scientists in paediatric cancer research and related fields.
Dr. Constanze Schneider received the award for her scientific work on “SAMHD1 is a biomarker for cytarabine response and a therapeutic target in acute myeloid leukaemia”, which was published in the journal “Nature Medicine”.
Until now, it was not possible to predict which patients with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) would respond to standard chemotherapy with cytarabine. With SAMHD1, a new biomarker has been discovered that can be used to identify patients who respond to chemotherapy with a high degree of accuracy.
