The LEO Foundation Award – Region EMEA 2025
Grantee: Dr. Thierry Nordmann, Dr. med., Dr. phil. nat., Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Germany
Amount: USD 100,000
Grant category: LEO Foundation Awards
Year: 2025
Geography: Germany
Dr. Thierry Nordmann is a Senior Physician at the University Hospital of Ludwig Maximilian, Munich, and Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried.
He received the LEO Foundation Award 2025 in Region EMEA during the ESDR annual meeting in Antwerp. Dr. Thierry Nordmann is recognized for his excellent research and innovative vision, aiming to transform the future understanding, diagnosis and treatment of inflammatory skin diseases.
The LEO Foundation Award – worth USD 100,000 – recognizes outstanding young researchers and scientists from around the world whose work represents an extraordinary contribution to skin research and has the potential to pave the way for new and improved treatments for skin diseases.
Systematic Profiling of Cytokine Responses for Targeted Treatment of Inflammatory Skin Diseases
Grantee: Thierry Nordmann, Dr. med. Dr. phil. nat. (MD/PhD), Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Germany
Amount: DKK 3,962,323
Grant category: Research Grants in open competition
Year: 2025
Geography: Germany
Chronic inflammatory skin diseases affect a quarter of the world’s population, but accurately diagnosing and effectively treating these conditions remains a challenge. This is largely because we do not fully understand how skin cells respond at the protein level to the numerous inflammatory signals. In Thierry Nordmann’s project, he and his team will create such a molecular dictionary using “omic technologies”, characterizing how skin cells react to a wide range of inflammatory signals (cytokines). Just as a language dictionary allows us to interpret the meaning of words, their molecular dictionary will enable us to understand the complex language of inflammation in diagnostic biopsies of the skin. In combination with artificial intelligence, they will use this dictionary to select the optimal therapy for the individual patient suffering from an inflammatory skin disease. This has the potential to improve patient outcomes while reducing side-effects and costs of ineffective therapies.