10.8.2026
Physicist Dr. Thomas Arne Hensel has been awarded the 2026 German Thesis Award (Deutscher Studienpreis) by the Körber Foundation. He received the first prize in the Natural and Engineering Sciences category, endowed with €25,000, for his doctoral research conducted at Heidelberg University. The award recognizes outstanding doctoral theses with exceptional societal relevance.
In his dissertation, Thomas Arne Hensel developed a novel optical imaging approach that enables the dynamics of protein-like structures inside cells to be visualized with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution. By designing specialized illumination patterns, he demonstrated how structural changes on the scale of individual proteins can be captured using optical microscopy. The method has the potential to advance our understanding of molecular disease mechanisms and may provide new insights into how drugs interact with proteins, ultimately supporting the development of more effective therapies and strategies to overcome drug resistance.
Thomas Arne Hensel completed his doctorate at Heidelberg University as a member of the Heidelberg Graduate School for Physics (HGSFP). Most of his research was carried out in the Department of NanoBiophotonics led by Prof. Dr. Stefan Hell at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences in Göttingen and at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences, where he is pursuing research in quantum many-body physics.
The German Thesis Award is one of Germany's most prestigious and highly endowed awards for doctoral researchers. In 2026, the Körber Foundation selected the winners from 859 submitted dissertations across the fields of social sciences, natural and engineering sciences, and the humanities. The awards will be presented in Berlin in December 2026.
SEBASTIAN BURK
