Deisseroth Receives $15,000 Young Investigator Award
Recognizes the achievements of outstanding young neuroscientists
CHICAGO — The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) presented the Young Investigator Award to Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD, of Stanford University during Neuroscience 2009, SfN’s annual meeting and the world’s largest source of emerging news on brain science and health. Established in 1983 and supported by AstraZeneca, the award includes $15,000 and recognizes the achievements of young neuroscientists who have received an advanced degree in the past 10 years.
“A key cornerstone of SfN’s mission is to provide support and encouragement to young neuroscientists,” said Thomas J. Carew, PhD, president of SfN. “Dr. Deisseroth’s pioneering contributions to the emerging field of optogenetics promise to provide novel and innovative methods for helping us further understand the mechanisms of psychiatric disease.”
Deisseroth’s research in the field of optogenetics, which involves the use of light-activated proteins for neuroscience, has been greatly influential in the study of neural circuits. This approach allows brain cell firing to be controlled with millisecond precision, which can help provide a better understanding of normal brain circuits and brain diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease. His efforts have allowed researchers to establish a causal relationship between defined neuron activity and complex behaviors.
The Society for Neuroscience is an organization of more than 39,000 researchers and clinicians who study the brain and nervous system.
