Congratulations to professor Christine Mummery from Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands who is co-recipient of the 2021 Scientific Grand Prize from the Lefoulon-Delalande Foundation of the Institut de France. The second laureate is professor Gordon Keller from the McEwen Stem Cell Institute and Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Canada.

The prize is 600,000 Euros and will be equally shared between the two laureates.

Each year, the Grand Prize is awarded to a world-leading researcher who has made significant contributions to cardiovascular research and medicine.

Christine Mummery received the prize for her pioneering work on the production of different cardiac cell types from pluripotent stem cells and their use for in vitro models, including Organs-on-Chips, to study human heart disease and drug treatments.

Christine Mummery is chair of hDMT (Dutch Organ-on-Chip Consortium), chair of the European Organ-on-Chip Society (EUROoCS) and president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research.

Created in 2000, the Lefoulon-Delalande-Institut de France Foundation contributes more than 1.4 million euros to medical research in the cardiovascular field, making it possible to finance each year an international Grand Prix. The distinguished work falls within the cardiovascular field in the broadest sense, integrating physiology, biology, medicine, epidemiology, pharmacology, cell differentiation, congenital malformations and, in these disciplines, advanced biological, pharmaceutical and instrumental therapeutics.

Click here for the speech of Christine Mummery

Click here for the press release from the Institut de France (in French)

Previous winners of the Lefoulon Delalande have included international leaders in cardiac and vascular physiology, genetics and development: Eric Olson, Christine and Jon Seidman and Elisabetta Dejana.

William G. Kaelin, Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semanza, were winners of the Lefoulon-Delalande Science Prize in 2012. Together, they received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2019.

Each year, the Institut de France, founded in 1795, allocates nearly 25 million euros, in a multitude of scholarships, grants, awards and prizes, in more than 60 countries, for the benefit of initiatives of artistic creation, the defense of heritage, scientific research as well as actions in favor of social cohesion.