For the second time, the highest award in addiction research has gone to a researcher at the Central Institute of Mental Health (CIMH) in Mannheim. Prof. Dr. Rainer Spanagel, Scientific Director of the Institute of Psychopharmacology at the CIMH, received the Jellinek Memorial Award at the Research Society on Alcohol (RSA) congress in New Orleans/USA in June for his outstanding achievements in the preclinical and translational development of pharmacotherapies for patients with alcohol addiction. Prof. Spanagel has been involved in addiction research for over 30 years and is the spokesperson for the Transregio TRR265 Addiction Research Network funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). He is primarily working on better understanding the causes of alcohol addiction and identifying risk factors in order to improve the treatment of patients and strengthen prevention.

The Jellinek Prize has been awarded by the Canadian Jellinek Memorial Fund since 1968. It is considered one of the most important awards in the field of alcohol and addiction research worldwide. The international prize is awarded annually in recognition of outstanding contributions to research into alcohol and alcoholism and commemorates the pioneer of addiction research, Dr. Elvin Morton Jellinek (1890 to 1963). This prize was already awarded to the CIMH in 2020. At that time, the award went to clinical researcher Prof. Dr. Karl Mann, who still works at the CIMH today as an emeritus university professor.