The Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, awarded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), is Germany’s most prestigious research funding award, accompanied by prize money of 2.5 million euros. This year, the prize will honour 10 scientists granting them seven years of research freedom with minimal bureaucratic constraints. The award ceremony is scheduled to take place on 18 March 2026 in Berlin.
Leibniz Prize 2026 for Johannes Krause
Where did infectious agents and diseases originate historically, and how did they spread and evolve? Biochemist Johannes Krause has managed to shed light on this part of the past. A key moment came when he identified the bacterium Yersinia pestis as the pathogen responsible for the Black Death. This played a pivotal role in establishing the field of ancient pathogen genomics, which connects questions from the natural sciences and cultural studies.
Since then, Krause has examined the genetic signatures of several historical pathogens found in human skeletons. These include bacteria and parasites that cause diseases such as the plague, tuberculosis, malaria and hepatitis. Using ancient DNA in combination with historical sources from the Tianshan region, he was able to date the start of the second plague pandemic to 1338–1339 and locate it in Central Asia.
Further milestones include Krause's studies on reconstructing the history of settlements on various continents in prehistoric times. His work sheds light on how infectious diseases have shaped human history. This helps to correct a Eurocentric perspective and highlight global mechanisms.
"I am immensely honored by this award. It recognizes the collective work of our team, which uses archaeogenetics to gain new insights into the genetic history of past cultures and to reconstruct the evolution of pathogens. This distinction encourages us to continue uncovering the history of human societies and their disease-causing agents from new perspectives”, says Krause.
About the prize winner
Johannes Krause studied biochemistry at the University of Leipzig and University College Cork, receiving his doctorate from the former in cooperation with the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) in 2008. In 2010, he moved to the University of Tübingen, where he was first appointed as a junior professor of paleogenetics, subsequently becoming a professor of archaeogenetics and paleogenetics. From 2014 to 2020, he was a founding director of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena. He has also been a professor of archaeogenetics at the University of Jena since 2018 and the director of the Department of Archaeogenetics at MPI-EVA in Leipzig since 2020.
He received an ERC Starting Grant (2013) and an ERC Synergy Grant (2020). His other awards include the 2010 AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize and the 2020 Fabio Frassetto Prize. He has been a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina since 2024.
Text: based on the DFG's press release
Contact:
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Press Officer
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig
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