Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prizes 2025
Grant and Award Announcement
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 8-May-2025 10:09 ET (8-May-2025 14:09 GMT/UTC)
In its anniversary year, Germany’s most important research prize goes to four female researchers and six male researchers / €2.5 million in prize money each / Award ceremony: 19 March in Berlin
Many vitamins are produced in chemical factories, often synthetically, but researchers at the Technical University of Denmark have succeeded in developing a natural and simple method for producing vitamin B2: by gently heating lactic acid bacteria. This could be a game-changer in developing countries, where many suffer from vitamin B2 deficiency, enabling fortification with B2 directly in local kitchens.
DNA stores the instructions for life and, along with enzymes and other molecules, computes everything from hair color to risk of developing diseases. Harnessing that prowess and immense storage capacity could lead to DNA-based computers that are faster and smaller than today’s silicon-based versions. As a step toward that goal, researchers report in ACS Central Science a fast, sequential DNA computing method that is also rewritable — just like current computers.
Street art takes many forms, and the vibrant murals on the Berlin Wall both before and after its fall are expressions of people’s opinions. But there was often secrecy around the processes for creating the paintings, which makes them hard to preserve. Now, researchers reporting in the Journal of the American Chemical Society have uncovered information about this historic site from paint chips by combining a handheld detector and artificial intelligence (AI) data analysis.
The industry—particularly the pharmaceutical industry—is deeply reliant on bacteria in their production. Now, researchers present a “superman suit” to put on the bacteria, so that they can produce chemicals with less energy, fewer solvents, and reduced waste.