Carl Gustav Carus Award

The Carl Gustav Carus Award has honored outstanding doctoral theses since 1998 and exceptional scientific publications since 2003. It is awarded to early-career researchers in medicine and health sciences who completed their doctoral degrees with summa cum laude or magna cum laude.

Dr. med. Tina Gabriel, Hybrid Echo Research Group

For her doctoral thesis in the field of clinical medicine, Tina Gabriel investigated how innovative ultrasound technology can contribute to the early and precise detection of diffuse liver diseases. By using H-scan imaging to analyze raw data from handheld ultrasound devices, she was able to show that this method enables practical differentiation of structural changes in liver tissue, thereby facilitating diagnosis, particularly in outpatient care. The work was supervised by Dr. Moritz Herzog and Prof. Jochen Hampe (both from the Else Kröner Fresenius Center for Digital Health).

Dr. Xuan Peng, Medical Nanotechnology Research Group

Xuan Peng developed a microfluidic system for producing hydrogel droplets, which can be used to efficiently generate large numbers of 3D tumor cell models. This technology makes it possible to study tumor biology and therapeutic response under realistic conditions and to test new drugs more quickly. The supervisors were Prof. Larysa Baraban and Prof. Michael Bachmann (Else Kröner Fresenius Center for Digital Health/Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf).

Dyke Ferber, Clinical Artificial Intelligence Research Group, Kather Lab

This year’s publication award goes to Dyke Ferber for his publication “Development and validation of an autonomous artificial intelligence agent for clinical decision-making in oncology” in the journal Nature Cancer. Ferber developed and validated an autonomous AI agent that supports clinical decision-making in oncology. The study shows that the AI agent can evaluate complex medical data and provide therapy recommendations at the most advanced level. This is a significant step toward personalized, data-driven cancer medicine. The work was supervised by Prof. Jochen Hampe and Prof. Jakob N. Kather (Else Kröner Fresenius Center for Digital Health).

Award winners 2026:

• Dr. med. Tina Gabriel: “H-Scan analysis of raw data from handheld ultrasound devices for the assessment of diffuse liver diseases”
• Dr. med. Katrin Reichel: “The role of rapid whole-body MRI in the diagnosis of patients with mild to moderate injuries”
• Dr. med. Jean-Paul Bereuter: “Impact of hepatic regeneration on residual tumor growth and identification of therapeutic intervention”
• Dr. med. Lina Lüttich: “Evaluation of the receptor tyrosine kinase c-Met as a therapeutic target for radiation sensitization and as a prognostic biomarker in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma”
• Dr. rer. medic. Luise Rupp: “Frequency, phenotype, spatial distribution, therapeutic modulation, and clinical significance of T lymphocytes in soft tissue sarcoma and B cells in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma”
• Anna Kristina Hernandez, PhD: “Investigating the Intranasal Trigeminal System and Its Interactions with Olfaction and Nasal Airflow / Obstruction Based on Psychophysical and Objective Airflow Tests”
• Xuan Peng, PhD: “Hydrogel Droplet Microfluidics for High-throughput 3D Tumor Modeling and Engineering”
• Publication award
  Dyke Ferber: “Development and validation of an autonomous artificial intelligence agent for clinical decision-making in oncology”

The award ceremony was held at the Dresden University Medicine campus with Representatives of the Foundation, the University Hospital, the Faculty of Medicine, and the Ostsächsische Sparkasse Dresden. Each award is endowed with up to EUR 1,000.