Matthias Hentze receives the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Federal Cross of Merit)
The award recognises the EMBL Director’s outstanding achievements in life science research and in building scientific structures across Germany and beyond
Matthias Hentze after receiving the Bundesverdienstkreuz at a ceremony on 2 July 2026. Also pictured are his wife Sabine Hentze, BIAC member and EMBL alumna, and Eckart Würzner, Lord Mayor of Heidelberg, who presented the award. Credit: Jan Korbel/EMBL
Matthias Hentze, EMBL Director and Co-Founder of the Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit (MMPU), has been awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany ( ‘Verdienstkreuz am Bande des Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik Deutschland’) for his significant and extensive contributions to life science research and enabling scientific training and exchange in Europe. He was presented the Federal Cross of Merit at a ceremony held on 2 July 2026 in Heidelberg.
The German Order of Merit is the highest federal decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany and is awarded for outstanding achievements in the political, economic, cultural, intellectual, or voluntary fields. Previously, former EMBL Director Generals Fotis Kafatos and Iain Mattaj received this award in 2002 and 2021, respectively.
“I am deeply grateful for this rare honour that I share with the EMBL community,” said Hentze. “It is a call for community-mindedness and civil courage in times of challenge.”
Trained as a medical doctor and having completed postdoctoral training at the NIH(USA), Matthias Hentze started his independent research group at EMBL Heidelberg in 1989. His research is focused on RNA-binding proteins, elucidating mechanisms of RNA posttranscriptional control and of riboregulation of cell biology.
Hentze is also a co-founder of the MMPU, a joint interdisciplinary and translational research unit of the Medical Faculty of Heidelberg University and EMBL, which bridges molecular medicine and fundamental molecular biology research.
Hentze has been recognised with numerous awards and honours, including the Otto Warburg Medal (2025), the Lifetime Achievement Award of the RNA Society (2020), the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (2000), the Lautenschläger Research Prize of Heidelberg University (2007), and the Feodor Lynen Medal of the German Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (2015). He is an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO), the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Australian Academy of Science.
