Once a high school graduate in Markt Schwaben, now nominated for the German Future Prize 2022

Created: 09/15/2022, 15:11

Stefan Vilsmeier at an event on the subject of the spine in the old rotation of our publishing house in Munich.

The former Markt Schwabener has now been nominated for the Future Prize.

© Oliver Bodmer

Stefan Vilsmeier, a former student at the Franz Marc Gymnasium, is a company founder, medical technology researcher and pioneer in digital diagnostics.

The head of the Brainlab company has now been nominated together with colleagues for the German Future Prize.

Markt Schwaben – Last but not least, the Franz-Marc-Gymnasium in Markt Schwaben can be very proud of this: Stefan Vilsmeier, a former high school graduate in the market town in the north of the Ebersberg district, and Claus Promberger, both from the Brainlab company in Riem, a leading provider in the field of digital medical technology, as well as the Hamburg professor Cordula Petersen, have recently been nominated for the German Future Prize 2022, the Federal President's prize for technology and innovation.

The prize has been awarded by the Federal President for more than 25 years and honors outstanding technical, engineering or scientific as well as software and algorithm-based innovations in a national performance comparison.

The jury consists of ten independent experts from science and practice.

The "ExacTrac Dynamic" technology, which is the focus here, examines patients with a wide variety of tumor variants during the irradiation with millimeter precision and uses real-time data to check the position of the tumor.

The treatment beam can thus be controlled according to the tumor position, and damage to the surrounding healthy tissue is reduced.

According to a Brainlab press release, this enables significantly faster treatment with fewer side effects than with conventional radiation treatments.

damage to the surrounding healthy tissue is reduced.

According to a Brainlab press release, this enables significantly faster treatment with fewer side effects than with conventional radiation treatments.

damage to the surrounding healthy tissue is reduced.

According to a Brainlab press release, this enables significantly faster treatment with fewer side effects than with conventional radiation treatments.

For the development of this groundbreaking method, Vilsmeier and Promberger work in close cooperation with Cordula Petersen, who was one of the first to use the technology in everyday radiooncology at the UKE (University Hospital Hamburg Eppendorf) and regularly provides her feedback on the implementation in practice as well as her experiences treatment concepts of stereotactic radiosurgery and radiotherapy.

Interdisciplinary research team involved

"The nomination for the German Future Prize is an outstanding honor for the work of our interdisciplinary team from research and clinical practice," says Stefan Vilsmeier, founder and CEO of Brainlab.

“It confirms our vision of making decisive advances in cancer therapy with software-based medical technology and making it accessible to more people worldwide.

In the future, radiation therapy can play a decisive role – possibly as the first choice.”

Cordula Petersen adds: "The potential of the technology is enormous: In the future, numerous cancer patients could be treated faster and with fewer side effects than with conventional radiation treatments, which may damage the lungs - this can help to enable a better quality of life for patients.

In addition, the chances of recovery increase significantly, because even very small tumors in the early stages could be treated with this method in the future.”

Cancer is one of the most common causes of death: The International Agency for Research on Cancer estimates the number of cancer deaths worldwide in 2020 at around 9.96 million.

During the development of ExacTrac Dynamic, the close exchange between Stefan Vilsmeier and Claus Promberger with Prof. Cordula Petersen led to the successful implementation of the common vision.

Complex selection process

The nomination for the German Future Prize was preceded by a multi-stage selection process by a jury of independent experts from science and practice.

In addition to other aspects, the following criteria were particularly important for the decision: The scientific and technical degree of innovation of the technology, as well as patentability and the implementation that has already been achieved or is in the pipeline.

Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier awards the Future Prize 2022 on October 26 in Berlin.

Brainlab develops software-based medical technology for digitizing, automating and optimizing clinical workflows.

According to the company, it sets new standards in medical technology to support doctors, medical professionals and their patients in over 6000 hospitals in 121 countries and to improve the quality of life of patients.

It employs over 2000 people at 25 locations worldwide.

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