The Leibniz Prize Jury, consisting of public figures and leading scientists and chaired by Leibniz President Matthias Kleiner, has nominated 6 outstanding doctoral theses for the Leibniz Doctoral Prize 2021, including the doctoral thesis of Dr. Torsten John in the category of natural and technical sciences. Dr. John completed his doctorate under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Bernd Abel at the Leibniz Institute of Surface Engineering (IOM) and the Leipzig University, graduating with the highest grade 'summa cum laude' in February 2020. In his dissertation, he addressed the question of how interfaces, in particular nanoparticles, influence the structures and aggregation behavior of peptides suspected of causing a wide variety of diseases such as Alzheimer's or type 2 diabetes. Dr. John has already been recognized with several international awards, including the 2017 SciFinder Future Leaders Award, the 2018 IUPAC Periodic Table of Younger Chemists Award, the 2020 IOM Young Scientist Award, and selected to participate in the 70th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. He is currently conducting research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States on a Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

With the doctoral award, the fellowship honors two outstanding doctoral theses from member institutes. This is endowed with 5,000 euros each. The decision on the award will be made in fall 2021.