The McGovern Institute will present the third annual Edward M. Scolnick Prize in Neuroscience to Michael Greenberg, a world leader in molecular neurobiology from Children's Hospital/Harvard Medical School.
The Scolnick Prize provides an important focus for the international neuroscience community by calling attention to the best new approaches to understanding the brain. Greenberg will present a public lecture titled "Signaling Networks that Control Synapse Development and Cognitive Function" from 4 to 5 p.m. on April 25 at the McGovern Institute, located in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Complex at 43 Vassar St.
Greenberg directs the Program in Neurobiology at the Children's Hospital/Harvard Medical School Department of Neurology. He has made seminal discoveries that have resulted in entirely new avenues of investigation in neural development, the neural response to injury and disease, and the search for new treatments for neurological disorders and brain injuries.
"Dr. Greenberg exemplifies the intersection of basic neuroscience research with areas of clinical importance, which will clearly impact the effort to alleviate the human suffering brought on by brain diseases," said Robert Desimone, director of the McGovern Institute. "Many laboratories worldwide are pursuing new leads based on the discoveries Dr. Greenberg has made."
"I am honored to be selected," said Greenberg. "It is especially meaningful to me because much of my research on signaling mechanisms that control nervous system development was inspired early on by approaches that Dr. Scolnick developed for studying signaling pathways that regulate cell proliferation and cancer development."
The $50,000 prize is named in honor of the former president of Merck Research Laboratories, who held the company's top research post for 17 years. The prize was established through a grant from The Merck Company Foundation to the McGovern Institute for Brain Research.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on April 12, 2006 (download PDF).
