Explore our grantees and awardees

Grant category: LEO Foundation Visiting Researchers

Year: 2025

Geography: Germany

Chronic and infected wounds remain a major challenge, often leading to delayed healing and extensive antibiotic use. The purpose of this project is to develop smart wound dressings made of nanofibers that mimic the skin’s natural extracellular matrix and contain thermotropic liquid crystals. When the wound temperature rises due to infection, these materials respond by changing color and releasing antibiotics. During a six-month research stay at the University of Copenhagen’s LEO Foundation Center for Cutaneous Drug Delivery, Dr. Mariia Nesterkina will combine expertise in liquid crystals and nanofiber technology to design, fabricate and test these infection-sensitive scaffolds. The expected output is a proof-of-concept wound dressing that both promotes healing and visibly indicates infection, offering a patient-friendly approach to reduce unnecessary antibiotic use and improve wound care.

Grant category: Research Networking

Year: 2025

Geography: Germany

The Eczema and Psoriasis Research Incubator will be held on September 16, 2026, adjacent to the ESDR annual meeting in Heidelberg, Germany. This workshop is designed to accelerate progress in the understanding and treatment of psoriasis and eczema by fostering cross-disease and cross-disciplinary collaboration with patients, doctors, and researchers. Through interactive small-group challenge labs, participants will co-develop innovative research ideas with the potential to inform future multicenter studies, biomarker discovery, and precision medicine approaches. Dedicated opportunities for early-career researchers to showcase their work and facilitate their involvement in collaborations will ensure equitable participation and strengthen the global research pipeline. Open to international attendees, this incubator is intended as a launchpad for collaborative science, generating new ideas, networks, and frameworks to advance patient-centered skin research.

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.

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Grant category: Research Grants

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.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2023

Geography: Germany

Friedrich Götz’s project aims to elucidate the role of bacteria-derived neurotransmitters in the development and progression of diabetic foot ulcers (DFU) and DFU-associated peripheral neuropathy (DPN).

A diabetic foot ulcer (DFU) is a poorly healing open wound that occurs in about 15% of patients with diabetes. Of those who develop DFU, 6% will be hospitalized due to infection or other ulcer-related complications. Previously, Friedrich Götz and his team have found evidence that neurotransmitter-producing bacteria of the skin (here termed neuromicrobiota) may have an impact on the healing process. However, it remains unknown whether the effects are beneficial or detrimental to wound healing.

In Friedrich Götz’s project it is hypothesized that permanent stimulation of neuronal skin receptors is more detrimental for wound healing. Through a close collaboration with the Trauma Surgery at the University Tübingen, BG Clinic Tübingen which treats ~200 DFU patients/year, samples will be analyzed for a variety of parameters, including neurotransmitter content, microbiome and metagenome composition, and impact of neurochemicals on wound healing. These will be compared to samples from healthy subjects taken at similar sites.

The goal of the project is to elucidate the role of bacteria-derived neurotransmitters in the development and progression of DFU and DFU-associated peripheral neuropathy (DPN). Friedrich Götz’s project will substantially aid the scientific understanding of DFUs and may provide potential for clinical application. If bacterial-derived neurotransmitters are found to have an impact on wound healing and progression of DFU, then this may open a new avenue for therapeutic approaches to treat DFU.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2022

Geography: Germany

The aim of Catherin Niemann’s project is to understand the biologic events during sebaceous gland differentiation, tissue remodeling, and regeneration.

Sebaceous glands (SGs) are critical for the physiological balance and barrier function of mammalian skin. SG dysfunction is associated with a variety of skin diseases, including acne. Despite recent advances using mutant mouse models with SG defects, the main drivers of normal SG functions remain incompletely understood. Therefore, a better understanding of how SG physiology and sebum production (an oily mixture produced by sebocytes, cells of the sebaceous gland) are regulated, is a clinical necessity.

Using both in vivo and in vitro models, Catherin’s project will focus on the regulation of SG stem cells, which are the primary responders to stimuli at the interface with the tissue environment. In vivo, Catherin and her team will use a combination of genetic mouse models and high throughput technologies to identify key players controlling normal SG activity. In vitro, the team has developed a 3D cell culture model that will be modelled to mimic SG differentiation to uncover and validate the central mechanisms of SG regulation. This SG-organoid model will be especially beneficial to decipher the specific role of extra-cellular matrix components in SG physiology and to examine the interaction with other cell types, including immune cells, for their impact on SG cell differentiation and contribution to SG defects in disease settings.

The long-term goal of the project is to establish a platform for testing new therapeutic strategies for the treatment of SG disorders.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2022

Geography: Germany

Michael Bader’s project aims to develop novel angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) inhibitors to be applied to the skin for treating inflammatory skin diseases.

Alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone (α-MSH) acting through its receptor, melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R), is the most important regulator of melanogenesis (i.e., the production of melanin, the pigment of the skin) and also exerts significant anti-inflammatory actions in the skin. Therefore, MC1R may be a significant treatment target for inflammatory skin diseases and for prevention of melanoma, and several agonists are already clinically approved or currently being developed.

Michael and his group have discovered that ACE2 limits melanogenesis in mouse and human skin by degrading α-MSH. Thus, ACE2 inhibition in the skin may be a novel strategy for dermatological diseases by stabilizing α-MSH and thereby activating MC1R.

However, ACE2 is also a protective enzyme in the circulation limiting the actions of the blood pressure regulatory system, the renin-angiotensin system. Therefore, systemic inhibition of ACE2 may cause severe side-effects, making topical application of ACE2-inhibitors preferable.

Michael and his team have already tested a number of available ACE2-inhibiting compounds, but none were suitable for topical application “as-is”. In this project, they will chemically design variants of known ACE2 inhibitors to optimize for skin permeation and test them in a mouse model of vitiligo. If they are successful, these compounds can also be tested in other inflammatory skin diseases, such as acne and psoriasis, for melanoma prevention, and perhaps even for cosmetic applications, such as skin tanning and prevention of hair greying.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2022

Geography: Germany

Sarah Hedtrich, who is also Associate Professor at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences of the University of British Columbia, leads this project focusing on developing novel ways to treat genetic skin diseases through intra-skin delivery methods.

Skin diseases caused by specific genetic defects (genodermatoses) are often rare but can be severe and even life threatening – like epidermolysis bullosa. To cure such diseases, the genetic errors which cause the diseases would need to be corrected. In recent years there have been major advances in targeted gene editing – not least with the CRISPR/Cas system which allows for both tissue- and cell-specific correction.

However, while the skin is readily accessible it has two features which impede such treatment: Firstly, the skin’s barrier function makes efficient delivery difficult, and secondly, as the skin is an epithelium with rapid turnover of the cells, a persistent cure involving gene editing must reach the stem cells which lie at the base of the epidermis, the outer layer of the skin.

Sarah and her team, with expertise in both dermatology, gene editing and topical drug delivery, aim to develop such a delivery system for gene correction treatments using microneedles and nanocapsules, and will investigate its efficiency in both human skin samples and bioengineered skin (disease) models.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2021

Geography: Germany

The project aims to investigate the role of the skin fascia (a membrane structure in the skin) and its interplay with a specific type of “scar-inducing” cells to better understand – and subsequently prevent – formation of scars. These scar-inducing cells express a unique gene marker, but the cell biology and biochemistry driving the scar process are still unknown despite wounds being an extensively studied clinical challenge.  

Yuval Rinkevich and his team will use novel whole skin-fascia explants (scar-in-a-dish) along with fluorescent “scar-forming” cells that can be tracked during contracture scar formation using live imaging to understand the dynamics of the scar process. Along with single-cell RNA sequencing this will help reveal the cellular and molecular basis of the process and make way for a knowledge basis for its improvement in human skin.  

In addition, the project will investigate the potential of several FDA approved small molecules for treatment of contracture scars. 

The research has the potential to change our scientific and medical views of wound repair and open new therapeutic avenues to treat a variety of fibrotic skin conditions. 

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2016

Geography: Denmark, Germany, Netherlands

The study is foreseen to increase the understanding of the skin barrier and immune system in atopic dermatitis.

Through international collaboration with scientists who perform state of the art and pioneering analyses on skin samples as well as national collaboration with immunologists and radiologists, the team will seek to evaluate non-invasive and easily collectable biomarkers that can predict the risk for atopic dermatitis.

The study has the potential to provide insight in atopic dermatitis pathogenesis and the value of promising pre-atopic dermatitis biomarkers that indicate both inflammation and skin barrier barriers dysfunction. This could be used to develop an algorithm that can better predict the onset of atopic dermatitis.

The team’s work may thus substantially increase the understanding of skin biology in neonates, both normal and diseased. The study will also provide a basis for not only future large-scale observational studies, but also randomised controlled studies evaluating the efficacy of preventive skin barrier restoration or anti-inflammatory treatment in selected groups, potentially reducing the incidence and complications of the most common skin disease in childhood.