Cerebral Cortex, Vol. 9, No. 5, 519-520,
July 1999
© 1999 Oxford University Press
Krieg Cortical Kudos 1999
Department of Biology, New York University, 100 Washington Square East, New York, NY 10003, USA
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Introduction |
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 Top Introduction The Cortical Scholar Award:...The Cortical Explorer Award:...The Cortical Discoverer Award:... |
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Dr Wendell J. Krieg, a distinguished neuroscientist and First President (Nucleolus) of the Cajal Club, was very concerned about increasing knowledge of the cerebral cortex. He and his wife, Roberta Krieg, funded three Cortical Kudos Awards to stimulate interest in this important research area. These awards are unique as they are given to scientists at important stages in their careers. The awards begin with the Scholar's Prize for outstanding potential while a predoctoral student; then an Explorer's Award for achievements within five years of receiving a postgraduate degree (Ph.D./MD); and, finally, the Discoverer's Award for major contributions by a senior established investigator. One of the most important functions of the Cajal Club is the awarding of these prizes for research into the structure and function of the cerebral cortex (including the hippocampus) and/or its connections. We interpret function quite broadly to include electrophysiology, behavior, plasticity, development, pharmacology and molecular biology. This year's Cajal Club Awards Committee consisted of Efrain C. Azmitia (President), David G. Whitlock (Secretary/Treasurer), Stewart H. Hendry and Herbert P. Killackey.
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The Cortical Scholar Award: Peyman Golshani |
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TopIntroductionThe Cortical Scholar Award:...The Cortical Explorer Award:...The Cortical Discoverer Award:... |
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The Cortical Scholar Award is presented for the best predoctoral research being conducted on the structure and function of the cerebral cortex and carries a monetary prize of $1000, a certificate and an original Kreig publication.
Peyman Golshani is the 1999 Krieg Cortical Scholar Awardee for his studies on the GABA and glutamate synapses in cortex and thalamus. He received his BA with majors in English and molecular and cell biology from the University of California, Berkeley where he won an NSF undergraduate fellowship and was a research student in the laboratory of Dr Carla Shatz. Presently he is a MD/Ph.D. student at UC Davis and a recipient of an American Heart Association Research Fellowship for work in the laboratory of Dr Edward Jones. He has three publications, two in the Journal of Neurophysiology and one in the Journal of Comparative Anatomy, describing his work. He writes `I learned that I can make the largest contribution to the battle against human illness by attacking medical problems at their most fundamental core, by studying physiological phenomena at the cellular level . . . Ramon y Cajal's scientific work has always inspired me.'
He is concerned with developmentally regulated changes in GABAA receptor subunits. In particular, he has focused on the alpha-5 subunit, which may be involved in the trophic actions of GABA seen before inhibitory synapses are formed in the cortex. He found a switch during early development from a primarily NMDA-based receptor response to a non-NMDA receptor response. Further, metabotropic glutamate receptors are present on the proximal dendrites early and later on more distal sites when they become associated with corticothalamic synapses and mediate an unusual non-specific cation conductance. Dr Edward Jones writes `. . . [he is] among the top two or three [students] I have ever had the good fortune to work with . . . Peyman Golshani is potentially one of our future leaders in neuroscience . . . [he] has already made a number of significant observations that will remain in the literature for a long time to come.' Mr Golshani spoke at the meeting in Washington on `Development and Function of the Corticothalamic Synapse.'
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The Cortical Explorer Award: Zoltan Molnar |
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TopIntroductionThe Cortical Scholar Award:...The Cortical Explorer Award:...The Cortical Discoverer Award:... |
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The Cortical Explorer Award is for an important contribution on the structure and function of the cerebral cortex made within five years of obtaining a Ph.D. or equivalent degree; a prize of $3000 is given along with a certificate, an original Krieg publication and a Felipi and Jones signed translation of Cerebral Cortex by Ramon y Cajal.
Doctor Zoltan Molnar was selected as the recipient of the 1999 Krieg Cortical Explorer Award for his pioneering and innovative research on thalamocortical development using the technique of serum-free organotypic culture. He was born in Hungary, received his MD from Albert Szent-Györgyi Medical School in Szeged in 1988 and his D.Phil. degree from Oxford University in 1994. His thesis on the `Development of Thalamo-cortical Connections' was awarded the biennial Rolleston Memorial Prize for best thesis in the biomedical sciences at both Cambridge and Oxford universities.
Dr Molnar presently holds a position in the Institute de Biologie Cellulare et de Morphologie, in Lausanne, Switzerland. He has been awarded numerous grants and fellowships. He received the Proxime Accesit for the Peter Beaconsfield Prize and the Hertford College Baring Senior Scholarship from Oxford University and the István Apáthy Medal and Prize from Albert Szent-Györgyi Medical School. His grants are from the McDonnell–Pew Center at Oxford University, the CIBA Foundation, the UK MRC, and from the British Council and Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science. He has held visiting fellowships in various countries, including the United States, Japan, Greece, Finland, Holland and Australia. He has published a book, Development of Thalamocortical Connections (1998, Springer–R.G. Landes, Co.), and numerous other publications.
Zoltan combines his keen neuroantomical observations with a unique experimental procedure to follow trophic and physiological events occurring under precise experimenter control and manipulation. He has shown keen insight in proposing dynamic models to explain his experimental findings, indicating that thalamic fibers grew within the scaffold of the descending cortifugal axons. Evidence for this was obtained using confocal microscopy and carbocyanine dye fluorescence tracing. Besides these developmental studies, he has shown extraordinary intellectual acumen by extrapolating the principles of his findings to theoretical questions of cortical evolution. In particular, he is developing the relationship between sub-pallial structures in reptiles and the emergence of a true neocortex, using experimental lesions in marsupials to examine ideas of cortical expansion. Finally, his exploration into the area of neuronal differentiation, including regulation of dendritic morphology, is based on the importance of activity-dependent activation of NMDA receptors. According to Professor Colin Blakemore `Zoltan became internationally known for the originality and breath of his work.' He surly will be one of the leading figures in the exciting research on development of the cerebral cortex. He spoke at the Cajal Club meeting in Washington on `The Earliest Interactions between Thalamus and Cortex'.
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The Cortical Discoverer Award: Javier De Felipe |
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TopIntroductionThe Cortical Scholar Award:...The Cortical Explorer Award:...The Cortical Discoverer Award:... |
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The Cortical Discover Award is given by the Cajal Club for a major discovery by a senior scientist; a prize of $5,000 is given along with a Cajal Medal, certificate, original Krieg drawings and invitation to write a feature article in Cerebral Cortex.
Doctor Javier De Felipe is the 1999 Krieg Cortical Discoverer recipient for his outstanding research and scholarly work. He has published on the neuronal and synaptic organization of the cerebral cortex in cat, monkey and human. In addition, he has provided excellent English translations of the celebrated Ramon y Cajal's Spanish publications dealing with the cerebral cortex (Cajal on the Cerebral Cortex, Oxford University Press) and neuroplasticity (Cajal's Degeneration and Regeneration of the Nervous System, Oxford University Press).
Javier De Felipe was born in Spain and received his Ph.D. from Universidad Complutense, in Madrid, Spain in 1979. He began his studies at the Cajal Institute in 1978. Today he holds the position of Colaborador Cientifico at the Consejo Superior de Investigation Cientificas at this same institution. In between, he won a Fogarty Postdoctoral Fellowship to study at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis and has twice been a Visiting Scientist at the University of California, Irvine to work with Dr Edward Jones. He received the Fundacion Eugenio Rodriguez Pascual Award in 1992 and the Delta Award in Madrid in 1997. He has lectured extensively around the world. He is Editor of Boletin Sociedad Espanola de Neurociencia and on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Chemical Neuroanatomy. He has over 50 publications, and his work is not only of high scientific quality, but also has aesthetic value, indicated by his selection for covers of seven major journals, including Cerebral Cortex, the Journal of Comparative Anatomy, the Journal of Chemical Neuroanatomy, Brain and Trends in Neuroscience.
De Felipe's early work dealt with the application of the Golgi technique to classification of interneurons in the cerebral cortex. He was a pioneer in the ultrastructural examination of labeling procedures, including autoradiography and immunocytochemistry. He has made seminal morphological contributions on the synaptology of the large basket cells of the somatosensory cortex, on double-bouquet cells and their laminarand cellspecific connections, and on the distribution of heterotypic synapses on the surface of pyramidal cells. He has made immunocytochemical observations of classic neurotransmitters, glutamate and serotonin receptors, nitric oxide and calciumbinding proteins in normal and epileptic brains. His elegant neuroanatomical studies provide key bridges between animal experimental observations and human disease. As Dr Edward Jones writes `Javier De Felipe has been one of the most consistent contributors of new morphological information about neurons of the cerebral cortex . . . [his publications are] important for technical innovation and their wealth of new data. . . . [He has] a far more scholarly approach and a far greater respect for the history of the cerebral cortex than most contemporary workers.' Dr Javier De Felipe spoke on `Double Bouquet Cells and Chandelier cells in Neocortex'.
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