(Freiburg/Vienna, 13 March 2026) Matthias Farlik-Födinger, research group leader at the Department of Dermatology at MedUni Vienna, has been awarded the Paul Langerhans Prize by the Dermatological Research Association for his work. The prize was awarded during the annual conference in Freiburg.
The Paul Langerhans Prize, which has been awarded annually by the ADF since 2003 and is sponsored by Amgen GmbH, recognises outstanding, continuous and innovative dermatological research by scientists from Germany, Austria and Switzerland in the middle of their academic careers. The research prize is aimed at ADF members under the age of 50 who lead a scientific working group but do not head a clinic or department, and takes into account up to five publications produced in the past five years in which the applicants are the first or senior author. After a formal review, an independent scientific board of trustees decides on the award based on criteria such as overall performance, relevance, originality and scientific quality of the work.
About the person
Matthias Farlik-Födinger studied microbiology and genetics at the University of Vienna and earned his doctorate in Thomas Decker's laboratory with research on gene regulatory processes in macrophages during infections. As a postdoc at CeMM, he developed new sequencing technologies for the epigenetic characterisation of cells in Christoph Bock's team and worked on an interdisciplinary basis to elucidate the developmental processes of healthy and diseased cells as well as the molecular basis of rare diseases caused by macrophages.
Since 2019, he is head of the INIMAC laboratory at the Department of Dermatology at the Medical University of Vienna, which investigates the role of innate immune cells such as macrophages and natural killer cells in the tumour microenvironment and in infectious diseases.
His work has been published in renowned journals such as Science, Cancer Discovery, Immunity, Cell Stem Cell and Molecular Cancer. He has also received numerous awards, including the Award of Excellence from the Austrian Ministry of Science, the Ursula and Fritz Melchers Prize, the Research Prize of the Austrian Society for Molecular Biosciences and Biotechnology (ÖGMBT) and the MEDA Prize of the Austrian Society for Dermatology and Venereology. He is also a member of the ÖGMBT Executive Board and a member of the Comprehensive Cancer Centre at MedUni Vienna and University Hospital Vienna.