Melanie Haffner-Luntzer and her colleagues from the Institute of Orthopaedic Research and Biomechanics (Prof. A. Ignatius) and her cooperation partners from the Institute of Osteology and Biomechanics, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (Prof. Amling) were awarded the „Wilhelm-Roux Award 2014“, which is sponsored by B.Braun, Aesculap with 5.000 Euros, for the presentation entitled “Midkine-Deficiency Delays Chondrogenesis During the Early Phase of Fracture Healing in Mice” at the Congress of the German Society of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery in Berlin. The award honors the best project in the field of basic research. Melanie Haffner-Luntzer and her co-authors showed that a complete lack of the protein midkine (Mdk) during fracture healing delayed the development of cartilaginous callus. Additional in vitro experiments demonstrated that Mdk knockdown directly decreased differentiation and beta-catenin signaling of chondroprogenitor cells. These results demonstrated that Mdk is important for chondrogenic differentiation during fracture healing and that a complete inhibition of Mdk would not be recommended for future therapy of patient with delayed fracture healing. The work was funded by the DFG.