Meet the 2026 Awardee: Jonas C. Schupp, MD, MPVD, ATSF
Jonas C. Schupp, MD, ATSF, is a clinician-scientist and pulmonologist specializing in interstitial lung diseases (ILD) and translational respiratory medicine. He currently heads the Center for Interstitial Lung Diseases at Hannover Medical School (MHH), Germany, where he also holds the prestigious Else Kröner-Fresenius Clinician-Scientist Professorship (W2), awarded in 2024. In addition, he is a Principal Investigator at the German Center for Lung Research (DZL BREATH), and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Yale School of Medicine, USA.
Dr. Schupp studied medicine at Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Germany, and completed his doctoral thesis “summa cum laude” in 2014, alongside a Master of Pulmonary Vascular Diseases from the University of Bologna. Following residency training in Freiburg, he joined the lab of Prof. Naftali Kaminski at Yale School of Medicine as a postdoctoral research associate from 2017 to 2021, before returning to Germany as a Returning Scholar Fellow. He completed his Habilitation in Internal and Respiratory Medicine in 2023 and was recognized as a Fellow of the American Thoracic Society (ATSF) in 2024.
His research focuses on the cellular and molecular underpinnings of pulmonary fibrosis, sarcoidosis, and lung transplantation, with a particular emphasis on single-cell and spatial transcriptomics. Dr. Schupp has led and contributed to landmark multi-institutional studies, including a comprehensive single-cell atlas of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, of human pulmonary endothelial diversity published and, most recently, a deep generative model for deciphering cellular dynamics and enabling in silico drug discovery in complex diseases. His work has been recognized with multiple awards, including the Research Award of the German Respiratory Society (2018) and several abstract scholarships from the American Thoracic Society. He has secured competitive research funding from sources including the Else Kröner-Fresenius Foundation, the German Research Foundation, the Ann Theodore Foundation, and the US Department of Defense.
Dr. Schupp’s current research interests center on precision medicine for chronic lung diseases, leveraging single cell and spatial omics and artificial intelligence to uncover disease mechanisms and identify novel therapeutic targets across a spectrum of rare and progressive pulmonary conditions.
Description
The award recognizes early career investigators with outstanding contributions to the scientific understanding of genetics, genomics, “omics” technologies, and systems biology applications in the fields of respiratory, critical care, and sleep medicine. The Awardee will feature such scientific contributions in a 5-minute presentation at the Section on Genetics and Genomics (SGG) Annual Meeting during the American Thoracic Scientific (ATS) International Conference. There is no monetary award for this recognition. Nominators are encouraged to emphasize the following achievements about a candidate (if applicable): (1) Scientific and Scholarly Productivity, (2) Educational and Mentoring Contributions, (3) Contributions to the Scientific Field, and (4) Participations in ATS, AII or SGG activities.
Eligibility
- Nominees must be members of SGG.
- Nominees must be within 10 years of their first faculty appointment (or equivalent). An additional written justification is needed to request a waiver of this criterion and will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
- Nominees cannot have previously received another ATS Early Career Award.
- Active participation and contributions to the SGG and the ATS will be viewed favorably.
- There are no nationality restrictions for this award.