Akiko Iwasaki - 2.5 million euros - Else Kröner Fresenius Prize for Medical Research

Akiko Iwasaki got some money,
https://twitter.com/user/status/1655547454165483520


"--- At a sum of 2.5 million euros, immunologist Professor Akiko Iwasaki from the Yale School of Medicine is being awarded one of the world’s most highly endowed prizes for research in the field of medicine: the Else Kröner Fresenius Prize for Medical Research. EKFS is consequently honoring Iwasaki’s groundbreaking contributions in the area of “Diseases of worldwide significance.” The focal point is formed by Iwasaki’s work on immune responses to viral infections.---"
https://www.ekfs.de/en/current-topi...i-awarded-else-kroner-fresenius-prize-medical

 

Such great news, and nice to see ME mentioned too:

Akiko Iwasaki, Ph.D. and a professor at Yale University, will receive this year’s Else Kröner Fresenius Prize for Medical Research on June 5th, 2023 at the Palmengarten in Frankfurt, Germany. The prize is endowed with 2.5 million euros, and through it the foundation Else Kröner-Fresenius-Stiftung (EKFS) acknowledges Professor Iwasaki’s research work on immune responses to viral infections. The prize also furthers her investigation of post-acute infection syndromes such as long COVID and myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).

 

Very nice and well-deserved, but I really dislike language like ME being recognized as significant. It absolutely hasn't and we've seen decades of headlines saying the same thing. We are no further 3 years into LC than we've ever been, everything still rests on a tiny number of motivated researchers butting against a completely apathetic, at best, or downright hostile giant healthcare industry. If anything, it's possible that the bar for evidence has been raised even further, pushing us back in absolute terms.

We have to end the damn false hope thing. It just demoralizes more than anything. It just feels like someone mockingly opening the door to our prison cell to tempt us at trying to escape, but it's on a mechanism that leaves no chance of escape. It's mostly just used to torment us by the usual quacks and charlatans.

 

Congratulations, well deserved.