Heinz Drexel

Physician honored with science prize

Heinz Drexel is retired.

(Bild: Land Vorarlberg)

The physician Heinz Drexel has been awarded this year's Vorarlberg Science Prize. Prizes of appreciation go to the contemporary historian Ingrid Böhler and the physician Silke Grabherr.

The state of Vorarlberg awards its annual science prize. This year, the award goes to the medical scientist Heinz Drexel, the appreciation prize goes to the contemporary historian Ingrid Böhler and Silke Grabherr, also a medical scientist. Special prizes were awarded to microbiologist Nadine Präg and mathematician Johannes Schwab. State Governor Barbara Schöbi-Fink (ÖVP) described education and science as "the foundation for the future of our country". The 25th Science Awards will be presented on September 9.

This year's main prize winner Heinz Drexel was born in Dornbirn in 1951 and completed his medical studies at the University of Innsbruck in 1976 with a doctorate sub auspiciis Praesidentis rei publicae. In 1988, he was habilitated for the entire subject of internal medicine. In 1991 he was appointed guest lecturer at the University Hospital Zurich, and in 1994 he was awarded a titular professorship at the University of Innsbruck. In 2006, he was appointed full professor at the Private University in the Principality of Liechtenstein. In 2007, Drexel, who had also completed several study visits to the USA, received an honorary doctorate from Drexel University in Philadelphia (USA). He was Head of the Department of Internal Medicine and Cardiology at Feldkirch Regional Hospital from 1994 to 2016.

President of the Diabetes Society
In 1996, Drexel founded the Vorarlberg Institute for Vascular Investigation and Treatment (VIVIT), which is active in biomedical research, and has been its managing director ever since. Drexel's research focuses on cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, lipid metabolism, cholesterol and pain research. He has published over 350 scientific articles and was President of the Austrian Diabetes Society.

Ingrid Böhler.

(Bild: Land Vorarlberg)

Born in Schwarzach, Ingrid Böhler (born in 1964) studied history and German language and literature at the universities of Innsbruck and Salzburg. She has been head of the Institute of Contemporary History at the University of Innsbruck since 2018. She has published extensively, particularly on recent and recent Vorarlberg history.

Silke Grabherr.

(Bild: Land Vorarlberg)

Silke Grabherr (born 1980, Koblach) completed her medical studies at the Medical University of Innsbruck in 2004. She then worked at the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Bern and the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Lausanne. In 2013, she was appointed as the youngest full professor in Switzerland at the Universities of Geneva and Lausanne, and since 2016 she has been Director of the Centre universitaire romand de médecine légale (CURML) in Lausanne and Geneva with more than 260 employees. Grabherr developed post-mortem angiography, which makes it possible to reconstruct the vascular system of the deceased on screen. In 2019, she was admitted to the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences.

Nadine Präg.

(Bild: Land Vorarlberg)

Terrestrial systems
Biologist Nadine Präg (born 1987, Tschagguns) was awarded her doctorate sub auspiciis Praesidentis rei publicae in 2021. She has been a Senior Scientist at the Institute of Microbiology at the University of Innsbruck since 2020. She researches the microbiome of soils and also investigates how microbial diversity and the diverse interactions in terrestrial systems are influenced by the changing climate and land use changes.

Johannes Schwab.

(Bild: Land Vorarlberg)

Johannes Schwab (born 1992, Götzis) completed his studies in mathematics at the University of Innsbruck with a doctorate. He has been a postdoctoral researcher at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge since 2021. In his dissertation from 2020, he dealt with inverse problems that use data-based methods to solve them. Due to the ever-growing amount of data, these methods are of great interest for everyday applications such as medical imaging. In addition, he has carried out numerical simulations for medical imaging and in particular photoacoustic tomography (PAT) and classical computer tomography (CT).