Michael J. Atkinson

Weiss Medallist 2014

Dr. Mike Atkinson is the director of the Institute of Radiation Biology at the HelmholtzZentrum, Munchen and Chair of Radiation Biology at the Technical University Munich. Mike was an undergraduate and post graduate student at Aston University in the UK, where he worked by Alan Perris on the haemato- and lymphopoietic response to radiation injury. He moved to Germany as a post doctoral fellow at the Medizinische Hochschule in Hannover, working with Rolf-Dieter Hesch on the development of radioimmunoassays. He was awarded a Boehringer Ingelheim fellowship to move to Harvard Medical School to join the new molecular biology movement. Subsequently he established a research group as a guest of the Max Planck Institute using molecular biology to investigate genetic events in cancer. In 1989 Mike moved to the HelmholtzZentrum Munchen, (then the GSF) where he finally became director of the Institute of Radiation Biology in 2007. Mike’s research has focused on understanding the complex cellular reactions that arise after exposure to ionising radiation, including cardiovascular, neurodenegerative and metabolic diseases. One goal of his work is to limit the side effects caused by radiation therapy to enhance the efficacy and specificity of tumour radiotherapy. Mike is also passionately involved with understanding the effects of low dose radiation exposure, including understanding individual genetic susceptibility and radiation carcinogenesis and the non-cancer effects of low dose radiation. Mike has played an important role in coordinating and participating in several EU Radiation Research consortiums including GenRisk, GenRad, RiscRad, Procardio, Dark.Rsik and DoReMi. He is a member of the HLEG, MELODI and OPERRA consortia setting the framework for future radiation protection research in EURATOM. He is a member of the federal commission on radiation protection (Strahlenschutzkommission). Mike has played a leading role in training young radiation biologists both by establishing a graduate school at the Helmholtz Zentrum and through MSc courses in radiation biology.

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