INFECTIONS researcher Dr. ir. Margo Diricks from the Research Center Borstel, Leibniz Lung Center (FZB) has been awarded the 2026 Gertrud Meissner Prize. The award recognizes her outstanding work in the field of mycobacteriology.
The European Society of Mycobacteriology (ESM) awards the Gertrud Meissner Prize, endowed with 2,000 euros, annually to early-career researchers whose excellent and innovative research makes a significant contribution to the advancement of mycobacteriology. Margo Diricks particularly impressed the jury with her innovative contributions to the further development of genomic analysis methods in mycobacteriology. The award was presented in June 2026 at this year’s ESM Congress in Verona by Prof. Stefan Niemann, Programme Director of the Infections Programme Area at the FZB.
Margo Diricks holds a PhD in bioengineering and has been working in the ‘Molecular & Experimental Mycobacteriology’ research group at the FZB since 2020. Her research focuses on the detection, spread and development of resistance in mycobacteria, with a particular emphasis on Mycobacterium tuberculosis, non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) and bacteria of the genus Haemophilus.
Her work focuses on developing genomic methods that enable the precise identification and typing of pathogens and the prediction of their antibiotic resistance patterns. These approaches make it possible to detect outbreaks at an early stage and to reliably trace routes of transmission.
For Mycobacterium abscessus, she also developed a cgMLST scheme – a genomic typing method for high-resolution analysis of the genetic relationships between bacteria – to investigate global populations and potential transmission events. Her research findings have been published in renowned journals such as Genome Medicine and Nature Communications.
The award is named after Gertrud Meissner in recognition of her significant efforts to stimulate and build up a mycobacteriology research community in Europe. She was the first head of the Department of Medical Microbiology at the Research Center Borstel. Her work was the basis for rational drug susceptibility testing in 1950. Also, she has established principles of resistance development in clinical isolates and demonstrated its association with virulence. She continuously supported the mycobacteriology community and was a founding member of the European Society of Mycobacteriology.