Costa and Ming Receive $15,000 Young Investigator Award
For immediate release.
COSTA AND MING RECEIVE $15,000 YOUNG INVESTIGATOR AWARD
Recognizes the achievements of outstanding young neuroscientists
NEW ORLEANS — The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) has presented the Young Investigator Award to Rui M. Costa, DVM, PhD, of Champalimaud Center for the Unknown in Lisbon, Portugal, and Guo-li Ming, MD, PhD, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Established in 1983 and supported by AstraZeneca, the award includes $15,000 and recognizes the achievements of neuroscientists who have received an advanced degree in the past 10 years. The award was presented during Neuroscience 2012, SfN’s annual meeting and the world’s largest source of emerging news about brain science and health.
“One of the most important objectives of SfN is to recognize and foster the growth of talented young neuroscientists,” said Moses V. Chao, PhD, president of SfN. “Dr. Costa and Dr. Ming have made significant advances to complex neuroscience and neurological problems with elegant and innovative approaches.”
Rui Costa’s research has been instrumental in providing new insights about how we learn new skills. Using genetic, optogenetic, and electrophysiological tools, Costa revealed how the learning and consolidation of new skills involves different brain circuits connecting the cortex and the basal ganglia. He also pinpointed the discovery that region- and circuit-specific changes accompany different phases of skill learning.
Costa earned his PhD at the University of California, Los Angeles, and is an investigator in the Champalimaud Neuroscience Program at the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown.
Guo-li Ming has made great contributions to understanding the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying neural circuit formation during development and in adulthood. Ming’s work has provided novel insight into the mechanisms underlying psychiatric disorders arising from aberrant neural development and circuitry formation, including schizophrenia and autism.
Ming earned her PhD at the University of California, San Diego, and is a professor of Neurology and Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
The Society for Neuroscience is an organization of more than 42,000 basic scientists and clinicians who study the brain and nervous system.
