CTAC Innovation Prize 2026

Congratulations to Alexander Geiger of the Research Group MITI at TUM Klinikum Rechts der Isar, who has been awarded this year’s CTAC Innovation Prize at the German Surgical Congress in Leipzig for his outstanding work on improving swallowing diagnostics using artificial intelligence. 

Swallowing disorders (dysphagia) affect millions of patients worldwide and remain notoriously difficult to diagnose reliably. Our work addresses this challenge directly, developing AI-based methods to enhance the precision and efficiency of swallowing diagnostics, with the potential to meaningfully improve patient care. 

A big thank you to the prize’s sponsor ImFusion and everyone else who contributed to making this work possible, especially Dr. med. Alissa Jell, Lars Wagner, Prof. Dr. med. Dirk Wilhelm, Daniel Rueckert 

We look forward to continuing this work, translating research into real-world clinical impact.