One of the winners of last year's Momentum Program originally initiated by HAS President József Pálinkás, researcher of the Biochemistry Department of Eötvös Lóránd University Mihály Kovács has been awarded with the Ignaz L. Lieben-prize of the Austrian Academy of Sciences on January 18 in Vienna. The award is meant to recognise the scientific merits of the Hungarian researcher.

Originally founded in 1863, then rekindled again in 2004, the prestigious prize is awarded to scientists below the age of 40 who work in states formally belonging to the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy. "Prior to my award, two Hungarian scientists were also given the oldest prize of the Austrian Academy: team leader at HAS' Institute for Experimental Medicine and member of HAS Zoltán Nusser, and lead researcher at HAS' Biological Research Centre in Szeged Csaba Pál", Mihály Kovács said. The USD 36.000 (HUF 8.5 million) prize is given to recognise the scientific achievements, publications and results of either a biologist, a chemist or a physicist from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, or Austria.   

Mihály Kovács and President of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Helmut Denk

 

Studying the properties and functions of so-called motor enzymes, i.e. proteins able to convert chemical energy into mechanical work, the research team organised within the framework of the Momentum Program in the spring of 2011 has now reached its headcount envisaged at the start. Two members of a group consisting of one post-doctoral researcher, five doctoral students, two MSc students and one assistant have joined the research team because of the attractiveness of the Momentum Program. The Hungarian researchers' main goal is to better understand  DNA-repairing mechanisms and the development of cancerous diseases via studying the properties of motor enzymes. "Our results have already gone into several articles", Mihály Kovács said, "and once accepted, they will get published in scientific magazines of the field later this year."