What Children Teach Us – The Future of Person­al­ized Medicine

Science Evening 2026

The 11th Science Evening of the Hector Fellow Academy, titled "What Can Children Teach Us — The Future of Person­al­ized Medicine," will take place on May 21, 2026, at 6:00 pm in Munich at the Bavar­ian Academy of Sciences and Human­i­ties and will also be broad­cast via livestream.

The scien­tific host of the evening is Christoph Klein, Profes­sor of Pediatrics and Adoles­cent Medicine and Medical Direc­tor of the Children's Hospi­tal at the Dr. von Hauner Children’s Hospi­tal of Ludwig Maxim­il­ian Univer­sity of Munich.

As a pedia­tri­cian, scien­tist, and member of the Hector Fellow Academy, Christoph Klein is dedicated to ensur­ing that children benefit more strongly from medical progress and that their reali­ties are better reflected in health­care. In addition, he actively advocates for partic­i­pa­tion of children and adoles­cents in medical research and health­care. Along­side Prof. Dr. Christoph Klein, Prof. Dr. Josef Penninger will also give a presen­ta­tion. He works at the Univer­sity of Vienna and at the Helmholtz Centre for Infec­tion Research. Another speaker will be Claudia Kittel. She is the Head of the Monitor­ing Office UN Conven­tion on the Rights of the Child in Germany.

The event will be moder­ated by the well-known televi­sion host Ralph Caspers.

The annual Science Evenings of the Hector Fellow Academy aim to place current scien­tific questions in a socio-polit­i­cal context. In lectures given by renowned speak­ers from science, politics, and business, bridges are built between the research topics of the Hector Fellows and the key challenges of our time. Panel discus­sions foster dialogue between science and the public and help to initi­ate forward-looking debates.