The 2005 winner of the MSIF biennial Charcot Award for a lifetime achievement in outstanding research into the understanding or treatment of MS is Professor Hans Lassmann. Professor Lassman was selected by the Scientific Programs Committee, under the chairmanship of Prof Reinhard Hohlfeld, of MSIF’s International Medical and Scientific Board.

“I am very honoured that I have been selected for the Charcot Award 2005, since this is the most distinctive Award in the field of MS research” says Prof Lassmann. As the winner of the award, Prof Lassmann will present the Charcot Lecture at MSIF’s biennial conference to be held from 25 to 27 September in Thessaloniki, Greece and then at the ECTRIMS/ACTRIMS meetings that will take place in Thessaloniki directly thereafter.

Since 1999, Prof Lassmann has been University Professor for Neuroimmunology, Head of the Division of Neuroimmunology and Acting Director of the Brain Research Institute at the University of Vienna, Austria. He is recognised as a pioneer in the fields of Neuroimmunology and Experimental Neuropathology and has received several international awards, the most recent of which have included the Hoechst Prize in 1999 and the first Sobek Prize for outstanding MS research in 2000. His current projects include research into immune surveillance of the nervous system, the mechanisms of demyelination and the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis.

Prof Lassmann belongs to a prominent group of scientists worldwide working on the immune pathology of MS. For more than 20 years, he has pursued his goal of understanding the emergence and causes of MS and has developed a global reputationand acknowledgement as a result. Recently, Prof Lassmann has worked with colleagues from the USA and Germany to set new standards for a modern classification of the different developing mechanisms in MS. These new results of the basic research have potentially promising consequences for future therapy strategies.