LifeScienceXplained

For Those Who Can Explain Life Sciences

The LifeScienceXplained | Sartorius Award for New Communication honors communicators who succeed in explaining complex topics from the field of life sciences in an easy-to-understand manner and is endowed with 15,000 euros in prize money.

Now in its fifth year, the competition received a record-breaking 99 entries, with three outstanding ones making it to the final round.

The award ceremony will take place on November 6, 2025 as part of the Göttinger Literaturherbst festival at the Sartorius Campus in Göttingen.


 

The Nominees 2025

 

„Prevention and Parkinson's Disease“

Dr. Eva Schäffer

 

In her science slam, Eva Schäffer, senior physician and neurologist, who is habilitated at Kiel University Hospital, explains why prevention can be crucial for Parkinson's disease. With humor, personal anecdotes, and scientific information, she explains how a healthy lifestyle can reduce the risk of developing the disease. She emphasizes the benefits of moderate endurance sports and a Mediterranean diet, and critically examines risk factors, such as the influence of pesticides. Eva emphasizes that prevention can slow the progression of the disease and improve quality of life after its onset. Her core message is: It is never too early or too late to start preventing Parkinson's disease. 

 

Watch the science slam here (only available in German)

© Markus Tedeskino |  © Julius Gabele

„Alzheimer's—Dangerous Slime in the Brain“

Bent Freiwald, Merle Hönig and Hakan Halaç 

ACB Stories, Podcast production studio 

In this episode, Bent Freiwald, science journalist and podcaster, sheds light on Alzheimer's disease, explaining what happens in the brain. The disease causes a deterioration of cognitive abilities, including attention, learning, memory, language, orientation, and motor skills. According to Bent, communication between nerve cells is disrupted by two “villains”. These processes cause nerve cells in people with Alzheimer's disease to become damaged and die. Through this podcast, Bent and the ACB Stories team successfully convey what Alzheimer's does to the brain in a clear and understandable way.

 

To the podcast episode (only available in German)

 

„How Light Becomes Stronger: Superpowers of Tiny Particles“

Naomi Weitzel

 

In her science slam, Naomi Weitzel, PhD student at the Institute of Analytical Chemistry at the University of Regensburg, highlights the remarkable abilities of rare earth nanoparticles. These tiny particles can convert low-energy infrared light into high-energy visible, and even ultraviolet, light—a seemingly impossible process. She illustrates this principle using a piggy bank. The particles “accumulate” infrared energy until it equals the energy of blue or UV light and then release it in a concentrated form. This unique property opens new possibilities for rare earth nanoparticles in medicine, such as cancer therapy, where certain substances can be activated in a targeted manner without damaging healthy tissue. 

 

Watch the Science Slam here (only available in German)

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Livestream Award Ceremony

Watch here the award ceremony of this year's LifeScienceXplained Award via livestream on November 6, 2025 , starting at 7 p.m. 

The Jury

The LifeScienceXplained prize is awarded by an independent jury of science and communication professionals. Three criteria are decisive for their decision: verifiability, comprehensibility and creativity.

After careful consideration of all entries, the jury selects three entries from which the winning entrywill be chosen. The name of the winner and the jury's reasoning are announced at the award ceremony each year. The three final entries will be published in advance.

Inga Bergen

Entrepreneur and expert for innovations in the healthcare sector

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Brück

CEO, Head of Research and Teaching and dean of the medical faculty at the University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG)

Prof. Dr. Viola Priesemann

Professor at the Max-Planck-Institut for Dynamics and Self-Organization and the University of Göttingen for Neural Systems Theory

Dr.-Ing. Jan Patrick Pietras

Co-founder of myotwin and engineer in experimental research

Anja Martini

Chief Science Editor of Tagesschau

Dr. Franca Parianen

Science journalist and neuroscientist, LSX-winner 2024

The Best of Four Years LifeScienceXplained

Who has reached the finals in the last four years?

(Only Available in German)

Watch Video Now

All Finalists

Dr. Franca Parianen inspires with science slam "Motor im Kopf"

(Only Available in German)

The influence of lifestyle factors on people's life expectancy

(Only Available in German)

Stopping the aging process with the yeast cultures

(Only Available in German)

Big data and artificial intelligence for the healthcare sector

(Only Available in German)

Children's non-fiction picture book about bacteria and their habitat

(Only Available in German)

Podcast Radio detektor.fm with the latest scientific topics

(Only Available in German)

Sugar - the next pandemic? 

(Only Available in German)

The YouTube Channel for Scientific Topics

(Only Available in German)

"Marko, the Macrophage" - The Science Comic

(Only Available in German)

Coronavirus explained with the help of an orange and cloves

(Only Available in German)

The non-fiction book about life and death: “Farewell to Hermine”

(Only Available in German)

13 Experiments - Understand the pandemic with tonic water & co.

(Only Available in German)

Partner

The Sartorius Prize for New Communication is awarded together with the NDR Non-fiction Book Prize. This award, also endowed with 15,000 euros, recognizes the best non-fiction book of the year published in German. 

The joint award ceremony will take place on November 6, 2025 as part of the Göttinger Literaturherbst festival at the Sartorius Campus in Göttingen.

NDR Nonfiction Book Prize

Literaturherbst Festival

LSX Media Kit

The media kit contains: the invitation to tender, the tender video, poster and logo variants

Download

Contact

LifeScienceXplained
Lisa Kottas