THE LOUIS-JEANTET FOUNDATION FOR MEDICINE awards the three prize-winners a cumulative sum of 1.2 million Euros to carry out their new research projects. In addition each prize-winner receives a personal award of 75'000 Euros.
THE PRIZE-GIVING CEREMONY will take place in Geneva (Switzerland), on Friday April 11th, 2003.
Professor Wolfgang BAUMEISTER
Winner of the 2003 Louis-Jeantet Prize for medicine
Wolfgang Baumeister is the director of the Max-Planck Institute for Biochemistry and head of the Department of Structural Biology in Martinsried near Munich. Wolfgang Baumeister is a citizen of Germany. He was born in 1946.
The architecture of the cell is made of numerous membranes and protein complexes which, until recently, were impossible to visualise at high resolution in three dimensions. Scientists either took two-dimensional images of thin slices by electron microscope or they disintegrated cells in order to isolate and analyse the components. This has largely changed with the work of Wolfgang Baumeister and his co-workers who have developed a technique known as cryoelectron tomography. This method also uses the electron microscope but analyses objects in a rapidly frozen state that preserves their structure. Multiple images are recorded from different angles, which are subsequently combined to generate three-dimensional images by computers. Previously, Wolfgang Baumeister made essential contributions to the structure and function of the proteasome, a large protein complex required for intracellular protein degradation. Recently, he has been able to show that electron tomography allows to visualize such complexes in their functional environment, the cell.
With the Louis-Jeantet Prize for medicine, Wolfgang Baumeister proposes to push electron tomography to still higher resolution and to investigate the three-dimensional architecture of the molecular complexes that form the synapses of nerve cells. This may provide insight into changes during synaptic activation. He plans to enlarge his group with a new specialised collaborator.
A more detailed description of Wolfgang Baumeister's research work is available upon request at info@jeantet.ch
Professor Riitta HARI
Winner of the 2003 Louis-Jeantet Prize for medicine
Riitta Hari is a professor at the Academy of Finland and the head of the Brain Research Unit at the Low Temperature Laboratory of the Helsinki University of Technology. Riitta Hari is a citizen of Finland. She was born in 1948.
Brain cells communicate via tiny electrical pulses that are accompanied, as any currents, by magnetic fields. Although these fields are extremely weak, they can be recorded outside the head by superconducting sensors. The method known as magnetoencephalography (MEG) is used to accurately record brain activation sequences. For 20 years, Riitta Hari and her multidisciplinary research team have improved magnetoencephalography (MEG) by advances in instrumentation and signal analysis. They have used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to study sensory, motor, and cognitive brain functions in healthy subjects, and have developed clinical routines for evaluation and follow-ups of neurological and neurosurgical patients. Riitta Hari has in recent years studied brain regions that control movements, but that are also activated by the observation of movements by another person. This mirror neuron system seems to match action observation and execution and may, therefore, constitute an important brain basis for social cognition.
With the Louis-Jeantet Prize for medicine, Riitta Hari wants to study the effects of observed pain on brain activation of the observer. By her project, she expects to further contribute to our understanding of the neural basis of social cognition. It seems possible that the brain areas involved may represent sites that dysfunction in disorders of social communication, such as autism or schizophrenia. Riitta Hari plans to recruit to this project two collaborators.
A more detailed description of Riitta Hari's research work is available upon request at info@jeantet.ch
Professor Nikos K. LOGOTHETIS
Winner of the 2003 Louis-Jeantet Prize for medicine
Nikos K. Logothetis is the director of the Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics and head of the Department of Physiology of Cognitive Processes in Tübingen. Nikos Logothetis is a citizen of Greece. He was born in 1950.
The visual information captured by the retina is transmitted to a subdivision of the thalamus whose neurons respond to brightness and colour. From there information moves to the primary visual cortex and a number of other cortical areas to finally reach the inferior temporal cortex. At each site certain neurons respond selectively to different aspects of the visual stimuli. One of the central questions is to understand when and where a stimulus enters consciousness. Nikos Logothetis and his co-workers are pursuing this question in studying the basis of visual awareness in trained monkeys. They could show that a fraction of neurons along the entire visual path are responsible for conscious visual perception. In his work, Nikos Logothetis combines multiple techniques to register simultaneously the brain activity in space and time. This has led to the discovery that changes in local oxygenation, commonly measured in active brain regions by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) , are the result of incoming signals rather than of outgoing action potentials.
With the Louis-Jeantet Prize for medicine, Nikos Logothetis wants to combine his previous approaches with methods reporting the activity of individual neurons. For this he wants to develop new biochemical probes that detect neuronal activity in real time. Nikos Logothetis plans to purchase essential pieces of equipment for his project.
A more detailed description of Nikos Logothetis's research work is available upon request at info@jeantet.ch
THE LOUIS-JEANTET FOUNDATION FOR MEDICINE
The Louis-Jeantet Foundation for medicine was established according to the will of Louis Jeantet, a French businessman, who died in Geneva (Switzerland) in 1981 and owner of a vast fortune.
Based in Geneva, the Louis-Jeantet Foundation for medicine started its activities in 1983. The Foundation awards a major scientific prize, the purpose of which is to foster innovative biomedical research in Europe.
In addition, the Louis-Jeantet Foundation for medicine encourages high-quality research at the University of Geneva Medical School by endowing professorships. Louis-Jeantet professors are provided with funds for research and administrative personnel.
THE LOUIS-JEANTET PRIZE FOR MEDICINE
The Louis-Jeantet Prize for medicine is not intended to honour past, or already celebrated, achievements. Rather, it is awarded with a view of stimulating research projects of the highest quality that the prize-winners' institution would not be able to fund in their entirety.
Prize-winners must be engaged in basic or clinical medical research in a member country of the Council of Europe, although they need not be themselves European nationals.
Since its inception in 1986, the Louis-Jeantet Prize for medicine has been awarded to fifty-six researchers working in Europe: seventeen in the United Kingdom, twelve in Switzerland, nine in France, nine in Germany, three in Sweden, two in Belgium, two in the Netherlands, one in Austria and one in Finland.
Each year, the prize-winners receive a cumulative award amounting to a maximum of 1.2 million Euros to carry out their research projects, as well as a personal prize. The total sum awarded by the Foundation, since 1986, to the fifty-six prize-winners for the pursuit of their research work, amounts to about 23 million Euros.
For more information, please contact:
Dr. Lukas KÜHN
Secretary of the Science Committee
Louis-Jeantet Foundation for medicine
Tel.: 4121 692 58 36 (direct) (42 secretariat)
E-mail: Lukas.Kuehn@isrec.unil.ch
Website of the Foundation: www.jeantet.ch
Professor Wolfgang BAUMEISTER
Department of Structural Biology
Max-Planck Institute for Biochemistry – Martinsried
Tel.: 4989-8578-2652/2642
Fax: 4989-8578-2641
E-mail: baumeist@biochem.mpg.de
Website: www.biochem.mpg.de/baumeister
Professor Riitta HARI
Brain Research Unit
Low Temperature Laboratory
Helsinki University of Technology - Helsinki
Tel.: 358-9-451-2959
Fax: 358-9-451-2969
E-mail: hari@neuro.hut.fi
Website: www.hut.fi
Professor Nikos K. LOGOTHETIS
Department of Physiology of Cognitive Processes
Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics - Tübingen
Tel.: 49-7071-601-651
Fax: 49-7071-601-660
E-mail: nikos.logothetis@tuebingen.mpg.de
Website: www.kyb.tuebingen.mpg.de