CSL Behring in Marburg, Germany recently celebrated the 12th annual Emil von Behring Memorial Run with a record-breaking number of participants.
In perfect weather, more than 600 people ran or Nordic walked in the charity event at the university stadium in Marburg. The 6.3 kilometer (4 mile) run/walk raised 4,000 Euro for the Child Welfare Foundation. The event is one way CSL Behring, which develops medicines for patients who have rare and serious diseases, pays tribute to von Behring, its namesake and once a professor and researcher in Marburg. Today, CSL Behring has a large, leading-edge facility in Marburg.
In 1901, von Behring received the first Nobel Prize awarded for medicine. He won the honor because of his work in serum therapy to immunize people against diphtheria, a potentially fatal infection. In his 2005 biography of von Behring, author Derek S. Linton wrote that in his lifetime von Behring was acclaimed among his medical peers and also received letters of gratitude from “parents of children rescued from death by serum therapy.”
