Prestigious Award for Jürgen Groll

09/26/2022

For his outstanding work in the field of biofabrication, Professor Jürgen Groll receives the Senior Investigator Award 2022, the most prestigious award of the International Society for Biofabrication.

Würzburg Professor Jürgen Groll. (Image: Michael Bartolf-Kopp / Universität Würzburg)

Biofabrication is about applying human cells to scaffold structures using automated 3D printing processes. These sophisticated constructs are then further developed into functional tissue models, for example for skin or cartilage.

Aim of this research are "artificial" tissues or even organ-like structures. They have the potential to replace animal experiments, to advance pharmaceutical and cancer research and to regenerate diseased or destroyed tissue.

Professor Jürgen Groll from Würzburg has outstanding achievements to show in this field of science. For this he now receives the Senior Investigator Award 2022 of the International Society for Biofabrication.

Award ceremony in Pisa

The award will be presented to him at the annual meeting of the society, which will take place in Pisa (Italy) from 25 to 28 September 2022. With the award comes honourable life membership of the society. Groll has also been invited to give a lecture at the closing ceremony of the meeting.

Jürgen Groll (46) has been head of the Chair of Functional Materials in Medicine and Dentistry at Würzburg University Hospital since 2010. Since 2020, he has also been the managing director of the newly created Institute for Functional Materials and Biofabrication at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU). At JMU he also initiated the Center of Polymers for Life – the new building for this interdisciplinary research centre is under construction on the Hubland campus.

Merits of Jürgen Groll

"He is a leading international pioneer in the research field of biofabrication." So says a letter with which three colleagues nominated Jürgen Groll for the award.

They say that the Würzburg professor has made important progress, among other things, in the development of bio-inks – these are liquids used to 3D print living cells onto scaffolding materials. He also owes significant progress in creating three-dimensional scaffolds: Here he introduced a completely new strategy, allowing scaffolds to be generated in a one-step process – scaffolds which mimic the matrix of connective tissue very well.

Prizes and publications

Jürgen Groll has received several awards for his successes. Among other things, he received a multi-million prize from the European Research Council in 2013, an ERC Consolidator Grant. He has published more than 230 papers in renowned journals such as Nature Chemistry, Advanced Materials and Angewandte Chemie.

Biofabrication in teaching

The professor is also committed to teaching. Under his leadership, one of the world's first Master's programmes in biofabrication was established at JMU. He also ensured that Germany's first professorship for biofabrication was established in Würzburg in 2016.