Junior researcher receives SEED stipend of the KKNMS

“Joseph Kuchling impressed us with his relevant question, coherent project design and excellent preparation for his research project in a recognized work group,” explains Prof. Dr. Bernhard Hemmer, Spokesperson of the KKNMS. A special feature of the SEED program is that stipend recipients are exempted from routine care for six months. “We want to support junior staff in pursuing their career in science. The SEED stipend enables them to concentrate exclusively on their research project for a half a year,” adds Prof. Dr. Bernhard Hemmer.

The recipient of this year’s stipend works at the NeuroCure Clinical Research Center (NCRC) at the Charité – Universitätsklinikum Berlin. In his project “High-resolution MR imaging of optic neuritis at 7 Tesla – new implications of differential diagnosis in neuroimmunologic disorders”, he focuses on developing a standardized 7 Tesla optic nerve sequence protocol. In this way, Joseph Kuchling aims to improve, as compared to imaging from 3 Tesla, differentiation between the various forms of early optic neuritis – in the context of multiple sclerosis, from neuromyelitis optica spectrum disease or acute optic neuritis – and thus to facilitate a faster and more precise differential diagnosis.

The SEED program is directed at junior researchers under 32 years of age who are still in medical training. Stipend recipients receive up to 32,000€ per project, where up to 75% of the budget is covered by the KKNMS and the remaining 25% by the stipend recipient’s employer.