Albrecht von Haller Young Investigator Award 2025: Study for Improved Heart Attack Prevention Awarded

Heart attacks remain one of the leading causes of early death worldwide, despite efforts to control the disease risks through preventive treatments, such as lipid-lowering after the acute event. This is a clear indication that current preventive approaches after a heart attack have reached their limits, says award-winner Dr Florian A. Wenzl at yesterday's award ceremony of the Albrecht von Haller Young Investigator Award 2025, held at the Institute of Medical History in Bern. Understanding the underlying cause, atherosclerosis, has steadily improved over recent years. It is a multifactorial disease in which inflammatory processes, lack of physical activity, and environmental factors play a crucial role. Therefore, secondary prevention, which aims at preventing another attack, should consider not only traditional cardiovascular risk factors but also non-traditional ones, explains the award-winner.

Florian Wenzl aims to pave the way for more targeted treatment strategies through accurate risk predictions. Besides conventional cardiovascular risks, he intends to also include comorbidities such as rheumatic, cancer, and liver diseases, as well as mental health. Using data from over one million heart attack patients from Switzerland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, an AI-based model is to be developed and verified. His study moves away from the 'one size fits all' approach, says the award- winner, toward a therapy that takes into account the personal risk profile of individual patients in more detail. Florian Wenzl receives a prize of 25,000 Swiss francs for his promising study. The dissertations of Josefin Kaufmann (University Hospital Basel), Adnan Mujanovic (University Hospital Bern), and Lucilla Giammarino (University of Bern) were also awarded at yesterday's ceremony. The awardees receive a prize of 2,000 Swiss francs each.

The Albrecht von Haller Young Investigator Award is presented annually by the Swiss Heart Foundation for exceptional scientific achievements in the cardiovascular field by young researchers. Besides cardiovascular research, the prize also considers interdisciplinary projects. It aims to promote the academic progress of young researchers or physicians, thereby improving the healthcare provision for cardiovascular patients in Switzerland.

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