Prof. Fahrenholz served on the CHA’s Advisory Board on Healthy Ageing since its launch in 2021, providing valuable guidance to the Centre’s leadership with his extensive expertise and experience. As a board member, he also played an important role in connecting the CHA with other organisations.
Prof. Fahrenholz is remembered as a renowned expert on the molecular mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease. He was appointed Professor of Biochemistry at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) in 1997 and became Head of the Institute of Biochemistry, later serving as an emeritus professor.
In 1999, he and his team succeeded in identifying an enzyme that can prevent the aggregation of protein fragments in the plaques typical of Alzheimer's disease. This enzyme, known as alpha-secretase, is a key target for earlier diagnosis of Alzheimer’s and developing future treatments – a discovery for which Prof. Fahrenholz was awarded the Brain League Research Prize (Hirnliga-Forschungspreis). He also received an honorary doctorate from the University of Gdańsk in 1998 for his work in the field of neuropeptides and their receptors.
We are deeply grateful to Prof. Fahrenholz for his guidance and support of the CHA’s mission of enabling more people to age healthily. His valuable contributions to science and the research community will be remembered.
We extend our heartfelt condolences to all who knew and worked with him.
About the Centre for Healthy Ageing
The Centre for Healthy Ageing (CHA) is a virtual research centre established in 2021. It brings together scientists in basic and clinical research from across Mainz who focus on ageing and age-related diseases. Participating researchers are from the Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB), which is also responsible for coordinating the CHA, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), its University Medical Center (UMC), the Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research (LIR), and Translational Oncology Mainz (TRON). Research at the CHA aims to promote healthy ageing and spark discoveries that could lead to the development of treatments to prevent or cure age-related diseases. For more information, please visit www.cha-mainz.de.
Press contact for further information
Dr Ralf Dahm, Director of Scientific Management
Centre for Healthy Ageing (CHA)
Phone: +49 (0) 6131 39 21455, Email: ralf.dahm@cha-mainz.de
