Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize | |
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Sponsored by | UNC-Chapel Hill School of Medicine |
Date | 2000 |
Country | United States |
Reward(s) | USD $20,000 |
Website | Website |
The Perl-UNC Prize is awarded internationally in the field of neuroscience. Its purpose is two-fold: to recognize researchers for outstanding discoveries and seminal insights in neuroscience and to celebrate the strength of the neuroscience research program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Edward Perl (1926-2014), a neuroscientist and former professor of Cell Biology & Physiology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, established the prize in 2000 to recognize outstanding scientific contribution in neuroscience. He had envisioned that the selection committee would choose recipients "from a broad field of neuroscience ranging from development to molecular mechanisms to integrative function." Perl further noted that "[t]he prize allows me to acknowledge the university for the opportunities it has given me" and that it "would help call attention to the institution and our strength in neuroscience." [1]
As of 2017, six recipients of the Perl-UNC Prize have gone on to win Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine (Linda Buck, Richard Axel, May-Britt Moser, Edvard Moser) or Chemistry (Roger Tsien, Roderick MacKinnon). Three winners of the Perl-UNC Prize (Thomas Jessell, Cori Bargmann, Marcus Raichle) have been awarded the Kavli Prize in Neuroscience. [2]
Source: UNC Neuroscience Center
Current members are William Snider (Chair), Tom Albright, Vanessa Ruta, Julie Kauer, Regina Carelli, Ben Philpot, and Mark Zylka.
Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific field that is concerned with the study of the biological processes and aspects that underlie cognition, with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain which are involved in mental processes. It addresses the questions of how cognitive activities are affected or controlled by neural circuits in the brain. Cognitive neuroscience is a branch of both neuroscience and psychology, overlapping with disciplines such as behavioral neuroscience, cognitive psychology, physiological psychology and affective neuroscience. Cognitive neuroscience relies upon theories in cognitive science coupled with evidence from neurobiology, and computational modeling.
Roger Yonchien Tsien was an American biochemist. He was a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, in collaboration with organic chemist Osamu Shimomura and neurobiologist Martin Chalfie. Tsien was also a pioneer of calcium imaging.
The Moser research environment is the informal name of a research environment established and led by the Nobel laureates Edvard Moser and May-Britt Moser at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway. The Mosers joined the university as professors of psychology in 1996, and formed their own neuroscience research group. The research group eventually evolved into several projects and research centers. The Mosers were awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain."
Cornelia Isabella "Cori" Bargmann is an American neurobiologist. She is known for her work on the genetic and neural circuit mechanisms of behavior using C. elegans, particularly the mechanisms of olfaction in the worm. She has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and had been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at UCSF and then Rockefeller University from 1995 to 2016. She was the Head of Science at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative from 2016 to 2022. In 2012 she was awarded the $1 million Kavli Prize, and in 2013 the $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.
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Richard Winyu Tsien, is a Chinese-born American electrical engineer and neurobiologist. He is the Druckenmiller Professor of Neuroscience, Chair of the Department of Physiology and Neuroscience, and Director of the NYU Neuroscience Institute at New York University Medical Center, and also an emeritus faculty member of Stanford University School of Medicine.
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