Luft Diabetes Foundation

Winners of Rolf Luft Award 2026

Anna Brismar — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 16:29:41 +0000

Professor Richard DiMarchi and Professor Matthias Tschöp

Richard Dennis Di Marchi (at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA) and Matthias Tschoep (at Ludvig Maximillian University, Munich, Germany) are awarded the Rolf Luft Award 2026 for groundbreaking scientific contribution in diabetes and obesity, with basic research leading to important clinical implications with the Short motivation:

for advances in peptide chemistry and the development of novel dual and triple agonists for the treatment of diabetes and obesity.

Extended motivation

Professors Richard DiMarchi and Matthias Tschöp discovered a new class of drugs with unprecedented efficacy in treating diabetes and obesity. Several versions of these so-called gut hormone poly-agonists have advanced through clinical trials. One class representative, with the same active peptide ingredient named tirzepatide advanced by Eli Lilly, has already been FDA approved for treating type 2 diabetes in 2022 and for obesity in 2023 as “Mounjaro” . Treatment of obese patients with tirzepatide decreased patients’ body weight more than 20%, an excess weight where obesity is typically defined. This level of weight lowering had previously only been possible with gastric bypass surgery. The discovery and validation of these highly efficient drugs for obesity have accomplished a transformative breakthrough, which provides a path for reversing the obesity pandemic. Additionally, it has set a direction in drug discovery for complex diseases when there is no effective therapy and more than one integrated mechanism in action might prove equally effective as demonstrated in obesity.

The award ceremony and prize lecture will be held on September 10th, 2026, in Nobel Forum at Karolinska Institutet (Solna).

Photo source: Karolinska Institutet

Winner of Kerstin Brismar Award 2025

Anna Brismar — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 19:02:06 +0000

I feel very honored to receive this first prize in Kerstin Brismar’s name and hope that it will contribute to us defeating Type 1 diabetes!”, says Johnny Ludvigsson.

Professor Johnny Ludvigsson, senior researcher at Linköping University and founder of the Children’s Diabetes Foundation, is the first to be awarded the Kerstin Brismar Award. Ludvigsson receives the award in recognition of his scientific excellence and his unwavering commitment to improving the lives of children affected by type 1 diabetes.

– “I feel very honored to receive this first award in Kerstin Brismar’s name, and I hope that it will contribute to our defeating Type 1 diabetes!”, says Johnny Ludvigsson.

The Kerstin Brismar Award was launched in January 2025 and will be awarded annually to researchers in translational research, i.e. the transfer of research results from basic research to patient-centered research.

At an award ceremony on November 6, Johnny Ludvigsson will receive the award and also give an award lecture under the heading: “How can we preserve the insulin-producing cells”?

At the ceremony, Professor Per-Ola Carlsson from Uppsala University, Academic University Hospital, will also speak about his groundbreaking research “Transplantation of insulin-producing cells without immunosuppressive drugs”.

Read more about the “Kerstin Brismar Award” on the foundation’s website here.

Motivation of the Prize Committee

”Johnny Ludvigsson is a globally recognized researcher whose lifelong dedication to pediatric diabetes has profoundly shaped the field. His work has primarily focused on type 1 diabetes, with a strong emphasis on understanding its early development and preventing the disease. Through a translational research approach, he has successfully bridged laboratory discoveries and clinical application, building his program on experimental and epidemiological studies as well as clinical observations. As principal investigator for several clinical trials and author of around 700 scientific papers, he has made an exceptional contribution to the global knowledge on type 1 diabetes. His current project, “Efforts to preserve insulin producing cells,” aims to save beta cell function before diagnosis to delay or prevent disease onset, and to intervene after diagnosis to improve treatment outcomes and reduce complications. These studies build on decades of research, supported by extensive registries and biobanks that continue to enable international collaboration. Johnny Ludvigsson receives the KB award in recognition of his scientific excellence and unwavering commitment to improving the lives of children affected by type 1 diabetes through translational studies.”

Launch of the Kerstin Brismar Award

Anna Brismar — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 21:43:56 +0000

On 30 January this year, a new award, the Kerstin Brismar Award, was launched by Rolf Luft’s Foundation for Diabetes Research. Starting in 2025, the prize will be awarded to particularly significant research projects in translational research in the field of diabetes. “Translational research” means that basic research results are translated into clinical research so that new knowledge and discoveries benefit patients more quickly. This will have a positive impact for the diabetes care, in terms of improved preventive measures and more effective treatment of diabetes and its sequelae. The prize includes a research grant of SEK 500,000 and a diploma.

The initiators of the Kerstin Brismar Award are Marika Treschow and Eva Josephson, two private individuals who are passionate about improving care for people with diabetes and who recently donated a large sum of money to the foundation.

The launch of the Kerstin Brismar Award took place at Hotel Villa Dagmar in Stockholm. Guests at the installation included donors/contributors to the award, the foundation’s board members, and people with diabetes in the family interested in ongoing diabetes research and the foundation’s activities.

The launch consisted of opening and closing speeches by the initiators Marika Treschow and Eva Josephson, as well as interesting lectures by three prominent diabetes researchers:

Kerstin Brismar, senior professor at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, physician and specialist in Endocrinology and Diabetes, as well as basic researcher and clinical researcher with a focus on diagnostics of the risk of type 2 diabetes, its prevention and how to prevent severe complications.
Malin Flodström Tullberg, professor at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, bbasic researcher with a focus on diabetes type 1, prevention and early diagnosis.
Sergiu Catrina, associate professor and university lecturer in Endocrinology at the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm; senior physician, basic researcher and clinical researcher with a focus on how late sequelae can be prevented and treated in diabetes.

For more information on the Kerstin Brismar Award, see this page.

The press release for the newly launched Kerstin Brismar Award can be read here (in Swedish).

See photos from the lauch of the Kerstin Brismar Award, below.

Prof. Evans receives the Rolf Luft Award 2025

Anna Brismar — Sat, 11 Jan 2025 21:35:14 +0000

Professor Ronald M Evans at The Salk Institute (La Jolla, USA) receives the Rolf Luft Award 2025. The award will be presented to Ronald M Evans during a ceremony in autumn 2025.

Professor Evans receives the award for his pioneering efforts in research on nuclear hormone receptors and their role in physiology and metabolic diseases. Read more about the motivation for thte prize here (in English).

(For further reading, see “Rolf Luft Award 2025″ (KI.se).)

The foundation celebrates 20 years with symposium

Anna Brismar — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 22:22:28 +0000

The foundation celebrates its 20 years’ anniversary. From left: Sir Stephen O’Rahilly, Jeffrey Friedman, C Ronald Kahn, Ritva Luft, Dame Frances Ashcroft, Alan Raffensperger, Kerstin Brismar, and Nils-Göran Larsson.

To highlight and celebrate the foundation’s work over the last 20 years, a jubilee symposium was arranged with, among others, previous winners of the Rolf Luft Award: Jeffrey Friedman, chairman of the nomination committee for the Rolf Luft Award (Rockefeller University), C Ronald Kahn (Harvard Medical School) and Sir Stephen O´Rahilly (Cambridge University), as well as Nils-Göran Larsson (Karolinska Institute), who is chairman of the Nobel Committee for Medicine/Physiology. During the morning, the above mentioned researchers described their ground-breaking work regarding causes and treatments of type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

Never before have such successful Nobel-class diabetes researchers participated simultaneously in a diabetes symposium, which impressed many. This led to the Nobel Forum conference room being filled to the brim. During the afternoon, Dame Frances Ashcroft gave an award lecture and researchers from the Karolinska Institute described their research; all primarily aimed at researchers and clinicians.

During the anniversary day, co-founder Kerstin Brismar’s invaluable efforts during the foundation’s twenty-year operation were also recognized, through a diploma presented by the foundation’s chairman Alan Raffensperger.

Frances Ashcroft received Rolf Luft Award 2023

Anna Brismar — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 22:19:47 +0000

Dame Frances Ashcroft, University of Oxford, was appointed recipient of the Rolf Luft Award 2024. The award ceremony took place in connection with the Jubilee Symposium on September 5th 2024. Dame Frances Ashcroft received the diploma from the Karolinska Institute’s Vice Head for Research, Marie Arsenian Henriksson. The medal was presented by Ritva Luft, former board member and Rolf Luft’s widow. Professor Kerstin Brismar granted the Rolf Luft Award 2024 in the form of a check of 10,000 Euro. The award ceremony took place at the Nobel Forum, Karolinska Institute.

In connection with the award ceremony, Dame Frances Ashcroft delivered an acclaimed award lecture entitled “Metabolic regulation of insulin secretion in health and disease”.

Thanks to Dame Frances Ashcroft’s successful research, 90% of all newborns with diabetes are today treated. This means that instead of giving children who are born with diabetes insulin via injections, the newborn is treated with tablets that are also used for patients with type 2 diabetes.

About Dame Frances Ashcroft

Frances Ashcroft is Professor of Physiology at the University of Oxford, Fellow of Trinity College Oxford and Fellow of the Royal Society of London. She earned her PhD at Cambridge University. She was appointed winner of the Rolf Luft Award 2024. The nomination committee, which consists of board members for the Rolf Luft Foundation for Diabetes Research, motivates the 2024-year awardee as follows:

Professor Dame Commander Frances Ashcroft has made the ground-breaking discovery that newborns with diabetes (neonatal diabetes) can be treated with tablets instead of insulin injections and thereby have an improved quality of life. This makes her a very worthy winner of the Rolf Luft Award 2024, says the board of the Rolf Luft Foundation for Diabetes Research.

Read more about previous years’ winners of the Rolf Luft Award here: Rolf Luft Award (KI.se).

(Photos: Ulf Sirborn/Bildmakarna)

New chairman appointed

Anna Brismar — Sat, 31 Aug 2024 22:24:46 +0000

In May 2024, the board of the foundation appointed Alan Raffensperger as the new chairman of Rolf Luft Foundation for Diabetes Research.

It is an honor for me to be appointed chairman of the prestigious Rolf Luft Foundation for Diabetes Research. I look forward to working with the other board members to promote improved diabetes care and support scientific advances that may lead to finding a cure for diabetes, said Alan Raffensperger.

A short summary of Alan Raffensperger’s professional background can be found on this page.