Israeli-American Scientist Wins 2016 Eppendorf & Science Prize

The Israeli-American scientist Gilad Evrony, MD, PhD has won the 2016 Eppendorf & Science Prize for Neurobiology for his work on developing technologies to sequence and analyse the genomes of single cells from the human brain.

Dr Evrony’s research, performed at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School with Dr Christopher Walsh and colleagues, has revealed a diversity of mutations in neuronal genomes indicating that every neuron in the  brain carries a unique fingerprint of somatic mutations. Such mutations can cause focal brain malformations and may have a role in other unsolved neurologic diseases. The technology also allows, for the first time, reconstruction of developmental lineage trees in the human brain to study how cells proliferate and migrate to build the brain.

Gilad Evrony received his undergraduate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He served in the Intelligence Division of the Israel Defense Forces and completed an MD and PhD at Harvard Medical School, with graduate research in the laboratory of Dr Christopher Walsh at Boston Children's Hospital. Dr Evrony is currently pursuing clinical training in paediatrics at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and continuing his research developing novel technologies for studying the brain and neuropsychiatric diseases.

The annual US$25,000 Eppendorf & Science Prize for Neurobiology honours scientists, like Dr. Evrony, for their ground-breaking research. Gilad Evrony is the 15th recipient of this international award which is awarded jointly by Eppendorf and the journal Science. Researchers who are not older than 35 years and have made outstanding contributions to neurobiological research based on methods of molecular and cell biology are invited to apply. The next deadline for applications is June 15, 2017. For more information about Dr Evrony and the Prize, visit www.eppendorf.com/prize.