This year's Franz Volhard Prize of the German Society for Nephrology (DGfN) will be awarded to Prof. Dr. Catherine Meyer-Schwesinger.

The highest price of the DGfN is given to outstanding scientists in the field of renal and hypertensive diseases. It does not only honors a single work, but rather the continuous study of a specific field of nephrology.

The overall goal of the award winner is to reduce the progression of glomerular damage. She investigates the relevance of protein homeostasis in the ubiquitin proteasomal system (UPS) and autophagy in various forms glomerulonephritis. She identified UCH-L1 as a specific UPS enzyme, which influences the renal proteostasis (patho-) physiologically.
Especially in the case of membranous nephropathy this enzyme plays a central role. Using system- and cell-spanning studies in human and rodent systems and with newly developed mouse models of membranous nephropathy, she was able to describe regulated protein homeostasis as a central mechanism for the maintenance of glomerular cell identity and function as well as for the development and progression of glomerular diseases.