ICM Awards and Recognitions

This section highlights the awards and distinctions won by our researchers and teams. We take great pride in the outstanding accomplishments of our staff.

Dr. Rusche Research Award 2026
Julius Kaemmel and Matthias Ivantsits received the Rusche Research Award for their project idea entitled “An Augmented Reality Feedback System for Safe Harvesting of the Left Internal Mammary Artery in Robotic Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery,” as listed in the DGTHG Award Recipients Chronicle: AI in Robotic Cardiac Surgery
Runner Up Best Paper Award MICCAI 2025
Héloïse Bustin received the Runner Up Best Paper Award for her paper “Multifrequency Neural Network-Based Wave Inversion,” developed as part of Collaborative Research Centre 1340: Multiscale Elastography for Characterization of Pathologic Extracellular Matrix Change: Announcing the recipients of the MICCAI 2025 Best Paper and Young Scientist Awards
IEEE-EMBS Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Sciences 2024, Penang, Malaysia
Isabell Schulz won the Best Paper Award for her contribution, “A Passive Beating Heart Mock-Loop with an Unpunctured Natural Heart to Enable Cardiac Device Testing”.
Best Poster Honorable Mention VCBM 2024
The poster “CaroTo: A Tool for Fast Comprehensive Analysis of Carotid Artery Stenosis in 4D PC- and 3D BB-MRI Data” by Hinrich Rahlfs, developed as part of the BIOQIC Research Training Group (BIOQIC – Welcome to the Research Training Group BIOQIC), received an Honorable Mention at the Eurographics Workshop on Visual Computing for Biology and Medicine (VCBM 2024 – 14th EG Symposium on Visual Computing for Biology and Medicine).
DGPK Best Abstract Award 2024, Berlin
Marcus Kelm received the award for the best abstract entitled “Longitudinal Assessment of Treatment Strategies in Ebstein's Anomaly: An Observational Study over Three Decades”, which examines and evaluates different treatment approaches for Ebstein's anomaly, a rare congenital heart defect, over a period of three decades.
Gerd Killian Research Grant 2024, Berlin
Pediatric cardiologist Marie Schafstedde received the Gerd Killian Research Grant (total funding: €60,000). Together with two other DHZC colleagues, she received the award for the research project “Microcephaly is associated with impaired educational development in children with congenital heart disease”, which investigates the relationship between microcephaly and developmental impairments in children with congenital heart disease.
ESAO Poster Award 2024
The poster presented at ESAO showcased initial pumping results from a novel blood pump and won second place in the poster competition. The poster was authored by Tim Bierewirtz.
IEEE Outstanding Paper Award 2024
The paper “Design and Realisation of a Highly Compact Tubular Linear Actuator for a Novel Total Artificial Heart”, developed in collaboration with the ICM, received the Outstanding Paper Award from the IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Industrial Electronics. The paper was co-authored by Tim Bierewirtz.
European Society for Artificial Organs Poster Award 2023 in Bergamo, Italy
Isabell Esslinger received the award for her poster “Investigation of Platelet Deposition on Titanium with Different Roughness Values and Hard Material Coatings in a Flow Chamber”.
Award for AR Demonstration 2023
The prototype of the MINIMAKI project was presented at SPIE Medical Imaging 2023 and won second place with Anja Hennemuth for the demonstration “minimARing – AR Solution for Interactive Heart Valve Surgery Planning”. The project involves research associates from the ICM and Fraunhofer MEVIS: Award Certificate (PDF)
Poster Award 2023
The German Association for the Study of the Liver (GASL) awarded the poster prize in the “Metabolism (including NAFLD)” category for Nikolaus Berndt: GASL Poster 2023 (PDF)
ESCO Best Paper Award 2022
The paper “Blood Flow Simulations and the Sensitivity of Quantities of Interest on the Numerical Modeling”, received the Best Student Paper Award at ESCO 2022. ICM authors included Jan Brüning and Leonid Goubergrits.
Young Investigator Winner of the DGPK 2021
Marie Schafstedde received the award for her contribution “Machine Learning-Based Patient-Specific Prediction of Pressure Gradients for Patients with Coarctation of the Aorta”. Further information: German Society for Pediatric Cardiology and Congenital Heart Defects – Awards and Scholarships
Faculty Award – Master's Thesis at TU Berlin 2020
Giada Confortola received the award for her master's thesis “Multimodal Deep Learning for Prediction of Postoperative Complications in Cardiac Surgery”. Further information: Faculty IV – Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, TU Berlin
First Place in the Poster Competition at the Leopoldina Symposium 2020
Niky Ghorbani received the award for her doctoral research topic “Impact of Valve Morphology, Hypertension and Age on Aortic Properties in Patients with Coarctation”.
VCBM 2019 Best Full Paper Honorable Mention, 2019
Lars Walczak received the award for his paper “Using Position-Based Dynamics for Simulating the Mitral Valve in a Decision Support System”.
BIH QUEST Center Open Data Award for Two Institute Papers 2018
Leonid Goubergrits and Jan Brüning were awarded for their publications.
ISMCS Scholarship Award 2018
The award was presented to Tim Bierewirtz for his abstract on a novel blood pump concept, “The Oscillating Plate Blood Pump – A New Concept for Pumping Blood”.
DZHK Paper of the Month, 2018
Awarded for a paper involving institute researchers: “Machine Learning for Real-Time Prediction of Complications in Critical Care: A Retrospective Study”.
NaWik Communication Award 2018
The award for the poster “Personalized Treatment Planning in Aortic Valve Disease” was presented to Sarah Nordmeyer for the most creative Flash Talk.
Institute Team Awarded the Berlin Startup Scholarship 2018
Vera Froese and Malte Mütter, together with Shpetime Jonuzi from Freie Universität Berlin, received the Berlin Startup Scholarship from Profund Innovation for their Evolchip startup, which focuses on simulating the development of bacterial antibiotic resistance.
First Prize at the Research to Market Challenge 2018
The SmartCor team (Markus Hüllebrand and Kay Brosien) won first prize in the “Life Science & Technologies” category of the Research to Market Challenge.
Second Prize at the MedVis Award / Karl-Heinz Höhne Award 2018
The award recognizes outstanding work in visual computing in biology and medicine. Lennart Tautz received the second prize.
Industry Award for Best Immersive Media at the Raw Science Film Festival 2017
The award was presented to Bianka Hofmann, Alexander Köhn, Mathias Neugebauer, Anja Hennemuth, and David Black for their film “The Beauty of Blood Flow Analysis”.