A team of scientists led by Iranian Hossein Ardeshir Ghofrani, has been conferred the ‘German Future’ award.
German President Joachim Gauck presented the award, an endowment grant of 250,000 euros ($266,000), to Ghofrani in Berlin, ISNA reported.
The “Deutscher Zukunftspreis” is one of the most prestigious awards in Germany’s scientific community.
Ghofrani’s team created a breakthrough drug to combat pulmonary hypertension. The team comprised pharmaceutical researchers from the Justus-Liebig-University in the city of Giessen and Bayer Pharma in Wuppertal.
Ghofrani explained the mechanism of the drug as “a new family of medication altogether,” using a phenomenon at the molecular level of the active agent not observed elsewhere in nature.
Receiving the award was “an incredible motivation boost,” he added.
On its website, the Zukunftspreis says that the “nomination alone and inclusion in the ‘circle of the best’ honors an outstanding innovation.”
The award does not solely take the value of advances made in science into consideration but also examines the marketability of the inventions it endorses.
From 1986 to 1994, Dr. Ghofrani, 36, studied chemistry in Aachen and human medicine in Giessen. He obtained his special medical training as an internist at the University Clinic of Giessen.
Since 1997, he has served as project manager for the priority program of “Molecular Differentiation Mechanisms of Epithelia,” funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), and has been managing a partial project in Special Research Area 547 “Cardiopulmonary Vascular System” since 2003.
During the past few years, he developed new treatment concepts for patients with various disorders of the lung blood vessels (pulmonary hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (smoker’s cough), pulmonary fibrosis, etc.).
In 2002, Ghofrani was the recipient of the travel award of the American Thoracic Society and the Francois Brenot Prize of the European Respiratory Society. In 2004, he received the research award of the René Baumgart Foundation (established by the Self-help Organization for Pulmonary Hypertension, based in Rheinstetten).
