Maximilian Order awarded to HIRI Director Jörg Vogel by Marcus Söder
© Bavarian State Chancellery
On December 3, Minister-President Dr Markus Söder presented HIRI Director and JMU Professor Prof Jörg Vogel with the Maximilian Order and accompanying certificate.
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Maximilian Order awarded to HIRI Director Jörg Vogel

Minister-President Markus Söder presented the prestigious award for outstanding achievements in science and the arts

On December 3, Jörg Vogel, Director of the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research, was honored with the Maximilian Order for Science and Art at a ceremony held in the Antiquarium of the Munich Residence. He received the distinction from Bavarian Minister-President Markus Söder, who referred to the Free State’s highest honor as the ‘Bavarian Nobel Prize’. HIRI is site of the Braunschweig Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in cooperation with the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU).

The Maximilian Order is limited to no more than 100 living recipients, all of whom have made exceptional contributions to Bavaria through outstanding achievements in science or the arts. As of now, Jörg Vogel, Director of the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI) and Professor at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU), joins this distinguished circle. Alongside eight other laureates, the scientist received the award from Bavarian Minister-President Markus Söder at a ceremony in the Antiquarium of the Munich Residence.

Vogel described it as a great pleasure and honor to receive such a prestigious distinction. Yet, he emphasized, the award not only recognizes him personally but also reflects the innovative strength and visibility of Würzburg as a center of scientific excellence: “I am deeply grateful to have found my research home here in Bavaria, in Würzburg. With our Helmholtz Institute and our strong partnership with the university and university hospital, we have the ideal conditions for conducting excellent cutting-edge research.”

About Jörg Vogel

As a globally recognized scientist in the field of RNA biology, Jörg Vogel is considered a pioneer in the application and development of high-throughput sequencing technologies. These methods make it possible to analyze large numbers of genes simultaneously, enabling, for example, the study of individual infected cells or the interactions between pathogenic bacteria and their hosts.

Jörg Vogel has served as Director of the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research since 2017 and has been Professor and Director of the Institute of Molecular Infection Biology at JMU since 2009. He studied biochemistry at Humboldt University of Berlin and at Imperial College London in the United Kingdom. He earned his doctorate from Humboldt University in 1999. From 2000 to 2001, he conducted research at Uppsala University in Sweden, followed by a position as an EMBO Fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel) from 2002 to 2003. In 2004, he established an independent junior research group at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin.

In recognition of his outstanding scientific achievements, Vogel received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize in 2017 and was appointed to its selection committee in 2022. In 2019, he was awarded the Feldberg Prize for German-British exchange in the life sciences. He is a full member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and the American and European Academies of Microbiology.

The Maximilian Order

The Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art was founded by King Maximilian II in 1853. It was established by law in 1980 in continuation of an old Bavarian tradition. The Bavarian Minister-President awards it in recognition of outstanding achievements in the fields of science and art.

The Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art was awarded for the 21st time this year; 255 personalities (including this year's recipients) have received the award to date. The number of living recipients is limited to 100. With the nine new recipients of the Maximilian Order, the order currently consists of 95 personalities. In addition to Jörg Vogel, Georg Ertl, Bernd Huber, Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla, Ulrich Walter, Martina Gedeck, Herlinde Koelbl, Rachel Salamander and Ralph Siegel also received an order on December 3.

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