The Anna Wunderlich and Ernst Jühling Foundation for the Promotion of Diabetes Research at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) has added a new award to its honours programme this year. The Jühling Prize will be presented annually to researchers who have made outstanding contributions to diabetology and metabolic research in collaboration with HHU and the DDZ. “The Jühling Prize focuses on a lifetime’s scientific work, which is an important extension of the Jühling Foundation’s philosophy of support,” emphasises Prof. Michael Roden, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Anna Wunderlich and Ernst Jühling Foundation, Scientific Director and Spokesman for the Board of the DDZ, and Director of the Department of Endocrinology and Diabetology at Düsseldorf University Hospital.
First awardee
The first recipient of the Jühling Prize is Péter Kempler, professor in the Department of Internal Medicine and Oncology at Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary, who is receiving the Jühling Prize for his outstanding research in the field of diabetic neuropathy. For several decades, Kempler’s research has focused on diabetic neuropathy, nerve damage that is a common complication of diabetes, and he is regarded as one of the world’s leading experts in this field. From 2022 until this year’s CEDA Congress, Kempler served as President of CEDA; from 2016 to 2021, he was President of the Hungarian Diabetes Society and is currently its Vice-President. He has been a member of the Diabetic Neuropathy Study Group (NEURodiab) since 1992 and served as President between 2018 and 2021. He also was a member of the Toronto Consensus Group, which developed diagnostic and treatment criteria for neuropathy that remain valid to this day. Over the past 20 years, Kempler has received numerous scientific honours, including the Hetényi Géza Award and the Hungarian state Batthyány-Strattmann László Award.
“For more than four decades, Péter Kempler has devoted himself to diabetic neuropathy, thereby improving the lives of countless people with diabetes and neuropathy. Among other things, he demonstrated the link between cardiovascular risk factors and autonomic neuropathy and showed that autonomic and sensory neuropathy each independently increase the risk of death,” emphasises Prof. Roden, who chaired CEDA 2026 as Congress President. During the event, Prof. Kempler held the Jühling Lecture “A Short Journey to No Man’s Land”, looking back on four decades of neuropathy research.
Jühling Award for research into cellular stress and insulin resistance
The project-related Jühling Award for early-career researchers was presented to Dr. Sevgican Yilmaz (Institute for Clinical Diabetology, DDZ) and Nika Atanelov (Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology I, UKD) for their project on the role of mitochondrial dysfunction in liver cells in the development of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.
The researchers are investigating how stress in the endoplasmic reticulum, a central production and quality control unit of the cell, damages the function of mitochondria, the cell's energy powerhouses, and may thereby contribute to these metabolic diseases. Since 2021, the Jühling Award has recognized interdisciplinary, cross-institutional teams from DDZ and HHU for innovative projects in diabetes and its associated complications, and is endowed with funding of 10,000 euros.
About the Anna Wunderlich and Ernst Jühling Foundation
The Anna Wunderlich and Ernst Jühling Foundation supports diabetes research at the Faculty of Medicine of Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and the DDZ. The foundation was established in accordance with the last will and testament of Dr. rer. nat. Liselotte Jühling (1904–1978); HHU has been the trustee since 2019. Since 2021, the Foundation has been presenting the Jühling Award for outstanding scientific achievements in research into diabetes mellitus and its complications. In 2026, the Jühling Prize was awarded for the first time in recognition of outstanding contributions to diabetology.
