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Aminoff Prize awarded to Piet Gros

[Piet Gros] Piet Gros

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the Gregori Aminoff Prize in Crystallography for 2018 to Piet Gros (Utrecht U., the Netherlands) 'for his fundamental contributions to understanding the complement system-mediated innate immune response'. The prize amount is SEK 100,000.

Prof. Gros received his PhD in 1990 from the U. of Groningen, the Netherlands. After postdoc studies at ETH Zürich in Switzerland and at Yale U., USA, in 1994 he returned to the Netherlands and founded a research group at Utrecht U. He is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been the recipient of numerous scientific prizes, including an ERC Advanced Grant and the Spinoza Prize.

The complement system plays an important role in the body's defences against bacteria and viruses. When the complement system is activated, more than 30 different proteins interact in a highly intricate cascade-like manner. Prof. Gros has determined the three-dimensional structures of many complement proteins, studied the complicated protein complexes formed by these proteins, and succeeded in clarifying their three-dimensional structures. He has been able to describe the molecular mechanisms that lead to the activation of the complement system and explain their effects on the immune system. Congenital and acquired defects in the complement system have proven to be the cause of many medical conditions. The structural information produced by Gros' research is a foundation for the development of new treatments for autoimmune, inflammatory and degenerative diseases.

The Prize Ceremony will be held at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' Annual Meeting on April 13, 2018. The Prize Lecture will be given on April 12, at Lund U., Malmö, Skåne U. Hospital, Sweden.

The Gregory Aminoff Prize rewards a documented individual contribution to the field of crystallography, including areas relating to the dynamics of crystal structure formation and dissolution. More information is available at http://www.kva.se/en/priser/gregori-aminoffs-pris.

8 December 2017