The first Hugo Geiger Prize 2002 of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft went to the up-and-coming biologist Marc Röhm from Fraunhofer IGB. Röhm has investigated four proteins that are responsible for the development of the hyphae in the pathogenic fungus Candida albicans.

Christian Schmalz, an up-and-coming chemist from Fraunhofer IGB in Hannover, was awarded a second prize. With the aid of a genetically engineered enzyme, a chitin deacetylase, he succeeded in making the manufacture of the popular natural substance chitosan, a break-down product from the chitin exoskeletons of prawns, more pure and mild than before.