Ingelheim, Germany, 6 November 2003 – The Heinrich Wieland Prize, endowed with EUR 25,000, has this year been awarded to Prof. David J. Mangelsdorf, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. Prof. Nepomuk Zöllner, chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Heinrich Wieland Prize, presented the prize at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich on 6 November, 2003. The Heinrich Wieland Prize, sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim to promote research in lipids and related substances, has thus been awarded for the 54th time.

Dr Andreas Barner, Member of the Board of Managing Directors and Head of Research, Development and Medicine, underlined: “Boehringer Ingelheim is proud to contribute to international scientific work with the award of the Heinrich Wieland Prize.The prize gives expression to our special relationship with Heinrich Wieland. He played a great part in building up pharmaceutical research at Boehringer Ingelheim.”

“Making this scientific award highlights the great importance of progress in research into metabolic diseases. Such progress can contribute to the development of new and innovative remedies,” added Prof. Dieter Hinzen, Head of Boehringer Ingelheim’s largest Research and Development site in Biberach, Germany.

“The scientific research highlighted by this award emphasizes the importance of achieving a better understanding of the relationship between the dysregulation of lipid levels in our body and metabolic disease,” said Prof. Mangelsdorf, “The results of these studies have revealed several interesting new therapeutic targets that will be of great interest in pharmaceutical research.”

Prof. Mangelsdorf focuses his research on the mechanism of nuclear hormone receptors serving as transcription factors. The work of Prof. Mangelsdorf signifies an important contribution to the elucidation of the mechanism that the body uses to restore balance following an increase in cholesterol levels. These hormone receptors, which include the LXR receptors occurring in the liver, may initiate the expression of a complete gene network following activation by small lipophilic molecules such as steroids and thyroid hormones or vitamins A and D. Some nuclear receptors play a role in protecting human cells against sharply increased and possibly toxic levels of lipids e.g. cholesterol and fatty acids, and thus also play a central part in the maintenance of physiological levels of lipids.