Corpet Wins DSM Science & Technology Award for Epigenetics Research

Besides the new insights it has generated, this research offers the promise of new diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for assessing human health and chronic diseases.

6/23/2011 --- French researcher Armelle Corpet has been awarded the first prize in the DSM Science & Technology Awards (South) 2011. An international judging committee, chaired by Dr Manfred Eggersdorfer, Senior Vice President Nutritional Science & Nutrition and Health Advocacy at DSM Nutritional Products, selected Dr Armelle Corpet, who obtained her doctorate from the University Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris, France, for her PhD research in the field of epigenetics. Dr Corpet has tackled a key question in mammalian cell division and has investigated the role of human histone chaperones in the maintenance of genome integrity, which is important for long-term health. Besides the new insights it has generated, this research offers the promise of new diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for assessing human health and chronic diseases.

As the winner of the first prize Dr Corpet will receive a cash prize of €10,000. Dr Corpet: “It is a wonderful reward for my PhD work and I am really thankful to DSM for acknowledging it and to my PhD supervisor Geneviève Almouzni, who guided and supported me during these intense years. This award is also an encouragement to pursue my career in science.”

The second prize (€5,000) was awarded to Stefan Radl of Graz University of Technology (Austria) for his PhD research on theoretical and computational investigation of chemical reactors. The third prize (€2,500) was awarded to Antoine Diguet of Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris (France) for his PhD work on the photocontrol of genes, biological membranes, and micro- to macrofluidic systems. The other nine finalists will each receive a cash prize of €1,250.

The winners were announced at a dedicated event held at Grand Hotel Victoria-Jungfrau in Interlaken (Switzerland) on June 21. Speaking on the occasion, DSM Managing Board member Stephan Tanda said: “It is a great privilege for us to honor outstanding PhD researchers doing pioneering work in a variety of fields. DSM is a science-based company. Scientific research enables us to create solutions to the big challenges facing our global society – to create innovations that make a positive and sustainable difference to the lives of people around the world. Innovations are always based on a combination of fundamental academic research and application-oriented industrial research. It is therefore very important for us to closely interact with the academic world. Our awards program helps us to promote this interaction.”

The DSM Science & Technology Awards ‘South’ form part of the DSM Innovation Awards Program. They are granted for outstanding PhD research by doctoral students from Switzerland, which is the home base of DSM Nutritional Products, and the neighboring regions of Austria, Northern France and Southern Germany.

In its report, the judging committee commended the high quality of the work of all the finalists. About its selection of Dr Armelle Corpet as first-prize winner, the committee said that a striking aspect of her research was that she was able to apply the results of her experimental work to an eminent problem of human health: 'Epigenetics is an emerging field of research which is expected to become very important in the future not only for the development of markers but also to understand the interactions of nutrients with the genome.'

Armelle Corpet conducted her research at the Curie Institute, University Pierre and Marie Curie, Paris (France), under the supervision of Professor Geneviève Almouzni.

Stefan Radl conducted his research at the Institute for Process and Particle Engineering, Graz University of Technology (Austria), under the supervision of Professor Johannes Khinast.

Antoine Diguet conducted his research at the Department of Chemistry, Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris (France), under the supervision of Professor Damien Baigl.

The other nine prize-winners are:
Renate Auer: Department of Structural and Computational Biology, University of Vienna (Austria)
Robert Büchel: Institute of Process Engineering, ETH Zurich (Switzerland)
Wolfgang Harreither: Department of Foodscience and Technology, BOKU University (Austria)
Inge Herrmann: Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zurich (Switzerland)
Paul Lange: Faculty for Chemistry, Technical University Kaiserslautern (Germany)
Felicitas Lips: Fachbereich Chemie, Philipps Universität Marburg (Germany)
Clément De Loubens: Génie et Microbiologie des Procédé Alimentaires, AgroPariTech, Grignon (France)
Oleg Vechorkin: Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering , Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL) (Switzerland)
Stefan Zahn: Faculty for Chemistry and Mineralogy, University of Leipzig (Germany)

The DSM Science & Technology Awards (North) are part of the DSM Innovation Awards Program. They are awarded for outstanding PhD research conducted by doctoral students from two European regions: the Netherlands, Belgium and Northern Germany (North) and Switzerland, Austria, Northeastern France and Southern Germany (South). Over the years, they have gained a high reputation in academic circles and the contest is a major event on the international calendar.