Biologist and physician Dr. Dasha Elena Nelidova is this year’s recipient of the prestigious X‑ray award from Justus Liebig University Giessen (JLU). The postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel (IOB) receives the prize money of 15,000 euros, jointly donated by Pfeiffer Vacuum and the Ludwig Schunk Foundation, for the development of a novel method for the treatment of age-related macular degeneration.
Since last year, the Röntgen Prize has also been available to “touch”: For this purpose, JLU and the donors had a miniature of the well-known Röntgen monument in Giessen made. The prize has been awarded since 1960 in memory of Nobel Prize winner Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, who was a professor in Giessen from 1879 to 1888.
A native of New Zealand, Dasha Elena Nelidova studied human biology and medicine at the University of Auckland and received her doctorate (summa cum laude) in 2019 from the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel, Switzerland, with the topic “Restoring light sensitivity using tunable near-infrared sensors.” The work was published in two articles in the prestigious journal “Science”. As part of her research, Dr. Nelidova developed a novel method for restoring vision in blindness caused by age-related macular degeneration — the most common cause of blindness in industrialized countries — based on the reception of infrared radiation.
She combined nanotechnology and gene therapy to develop a sensor for the near-infrared range that enables patients to regain visual perception of their surroundings. This procedure has already been successfully tested on mice and human retina (post mortem). In the future, Dr. Nelidova will work in the field of ophthalmology at the University Hospital in addition to her research at the IOB. She has already received several awards for her research, and she holds two patents for her inventions.
Before the award ceremony at Justus Liebig University in Giessen, Dr. Nelidova visited the donor company Pfeiffer Vacuum and reported on her research results and findings.
