Download Dear collegues and guests, ladies and gentlemen

Laudatio for Ronald N. Germain, M.D., Ph.D.,
Laboratory of Immunology, Lymphocyte Biology Section, Nationl Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA
Held by Clemens Scheinecker, M.D.,
Dept.of Internal Medicine III, Div.of Rheumatology, General Hospital of Vienna,
Austria
Dear collegues and guests, ladies and gentlemen.
As one of his former fellows it is a particular pleasure and honor for me to introduce
to you this years recipient of the Karl Landsteiner medal, Ron Germain.
Dr. Germain received his MD and PhD from Harvard University where he also started
his scientific career at the Department of Pathology.
In 1981 Ron Germain first came in contact with the National Institutes of Health in
Bethesda as a guest investigator in the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics
In 1982 he was appointed as Senior Investigator at the Laboratory of Immunology at
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and became chief of the
Lymphocyte Biology Section in 1987 and LI Deputy Chief in 1994. These are position
he still holds today and from which he pursued a scientific career which is impressive
both in its extent as well as in its profoundness.
The scientific topics he has worked on cover an impressive range from fundamental
analysis of thymic T cell differentiation and activation, Antigen processing and T cell
and dendritic cell functional analysis.
Since several years he is one of the persons leading the field of dynamic real time in
vivo microscopy. With this work has been able to reinforced some existing ideas but
also initiated important changes of other long-held views in the field of immunology.
In addition in 2006 he be came director of the Systems Immunology and Infectious
Disease Modeling Program of the NIAID which - with the help of computer modeling is supposed to take basic research far beyond animal models and in vitro cultures.
Until today his work includes over 300 scientific publications with a frequent
authorship in highest ranked journals such as Nature, Science or Cell, over 90 invited
lectures and the past or present editorial board membership of journals like Immunity,
the Journal of Experimental Medicine or JCI, just to name some of them.
His work has already been honored with several prizes of which the most prestigious
one is probably the Meritorious Presidential Rank Award
…. until today when we have the pleasure to welcome Ron Germain as this years
recipient of the Karl Landsteiner medal.