Award Ceremony at Kieler Woche: CATCH ALL Speaker Claudia Baldus receives the 2025 Kiel Science Award

Our CATCH ALL speaker, Professor Claudia Baldus, Director of the Department of Hematology and Oncology at the University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein (UKSH), Campus Kiel, and executive board member of the University Cancer Center Schleswig-Holstein (UCCSH), has been awarded the 2025 Science Award of the City of Kiel. The distinction recognizes her international contributions to the advancement of molecular leukemia research. We warmly congratulate her on this well-deserved recognition.

The award was presented on Sunday, June 29, during the final day of Kiel Week. Each year, the state capital alternates between presenting its Culture and Science Awards to individuals or institutions whose work is closely linked to Kiel or Schleswig-Holstein and who have made outstanding contributions, often extending beyond the region. The awardees were nominated by the Kiel Cultural and Scientific Senate under the leadership of CAU Vice President Professor Catherine Cleophas, and the final decision was confirmed unanimously by the City Council.

In his laudatory speech, Professor Joachim Thiery, Dean of the Medical Faculty at Kiel University and UKSH Board Member for Research and Teaching, highlighted Baldus’s achievements, describing her career path as “as focused and forward-looking as her scientific and clinical work.” Baldus was one of the first women in Germany to be appointed to a full professorship in hematology and oncology when she joined Kiel University and UKSH in 2018. Since then, she has established what Thiery called “a beacon of leukemia research with wide reach.”

Baldus emphasized the importance of collaboration and compassion in her work: “You are only as good as the team you get to work with. But the most important thing in clinical medicine is empathy for our patients.”

This year’s Innovationspreis of the City of Kiel was awarded to Professor Rainer Adelung, materials scientist at Kiel University, in recognition of his contributions to industrial research and technological development.

The awards are each endowed with 10,000 euros. In a short video produced by the KiWo2025 team, Prof. Baldus shares insights into her research and what drives her scientific work. Watch it here.

Reference: https://www.kieler-woche.de/de/medien/meldung.php?id=141479