Endocrine Abstracts

The European Journal of Endocrinology Prize is awarded to a candidate who has contributed significantly to the advancement of the knowledge in the field of endocrinology through publication. Further information on the prize can be found at http://www.ese-hormones.org/prizes/eje.aspx. This year’s recipient is Prof. Martin Fassnacht. The prize will be presented as part of the ECE 2014 opening ceremony where Prof. Fassnacht will deliver his lecture. Prof. Fassnacht will also write a review article based on this lecture to be published in the European Journal of Endocrinology.

Prof. Martin Fassnacht was born in 1971 and studied medicine at the Saarland University and the University of Würzburg. He started his research on adrenal tumors in 1995, when he joined the Würzburg Endocrine Unit for his doctoral thesis. He then completed a two year post-doctoral fellowship at the Duke University in the US and returned to Würzburg to complete his medical training for internal medicine and later for endocrinology and diabetes under the mentorship of Prof. Bruno Allolio.

In 2006 Martin Fassnacht was appointed consultant endocrinologist and in 2008 deputy head of the Department of Endocrinology at the University Hospital of Würzburg. In 2012 he became Professor at the University of Munich and Head of Clinical Endocrinology, the Center for Endocrine Tumors at the University Hospital of Munich. Just recently, in February 2014, he was recruited by the University of Würzburg and is now head of its Department of Endocrinology and Diabetes. Prof. Fassnacht has published more than 130 articles in peer-reviewed journals including several outstanding reviews. He is a clinical scientist with a special focus on adrenal diseases and endocrine oncology. Research in his laboratory aims at a better understanding of the pathogenesis of adrenal tumors and new treatment strategies for adrenocortical carcinoma. He has run several clinical trials for different endocrine tumors, including the first randomized trial for adrenocortical carcinoma, FIRM-ACT.

Prof. Fassnacht has received a number of awards, including the Marius-Tausk Price 2003 and the Schoeller-Junkmann Award 2010 of the German Society of Endocrinology as well as the AIO Clinical Research Award 2012 of the German Cancer Society. He is currently the head of the Adrenocortical Carcinoma working group of the European Network for the Study of Adrenal Tumours (ENSAT) and serves as member of the Publication Core Committee of the American Endocrine Society and on the Clinical Committee of the European Society of Endocrinology.