Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD, will receive the 2015 Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research, in honor of his pioneering role in the development of optogenetics, a technology for using light to control the activity of neurons, as well as for CLARITY, a method for transforming intact organs into transparent polymer gels to allow high-resolution visualization of biological structures. Dr. Deisseroth, a member of the BRAIN Working Group of the Advisory Committee to the NIH Director, will share the $500,000 prize with Xiaoliang Sunney Xie, PhD, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard, who is a pioneer of single-molecule biophysical chemistry and its application to biology.
Over the past decade, optogenetics has become a ubiquitous tool in neuroscience labs worldwide, and has played an important role in hundreds of research papers investigating the basic function of neurons as well as defects in neural circuitry underlying diseases such as Parkinson’s, depression, and schizophrenia. Developed two years ago, CLARITY has already enabled scientists to observe molecular-level details of healthy brains and the brains of Alzheimer’s disease and autism patients.
In alignment with the BRAIN Initiative’s goal of training scientists to use next-generation neuroscience tools and techniques, Dr. Deisseroth, using a research supplement from NINDS, offers free three-day workshops on optogenetics and CLARITY throughout the year.
The Albany Prize has been given annually since 2001 to those who have altered the course of medical research and is one of the largest prizes in medicine and science in the United States. It will be formally awarded on Friday, May 15, during a celebration in Albany, N.Y.