image: Shigetada Nakanishi, recipient of the 2007 Gruber Neuroscience Prize. view more
Credit: Osaka Bioscience Institute
June 28, 2007, New York, New York -- Over the last forty years, Shigetada Nakanishi has unraveled many of the molecular secrets that underpin the function of the brain. His work has created new tools for researchers, and new drug targets for pharmacologists.
For his achievements, Nakanishi, director of the Osaka Bioscience Institute, will receive the 2007 Gruber Prize for Neuroscience on November 4, 2007 at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego, California. The prize consists of a gold medal and $US500,000.
“A full understanding of the workings of the human brain is still decades or more away,” according to Richard W. Tsien, a member of the Gruber Foundation’s Neuroscience Selection Advisory Board.
“But Shigetada Nakanishi’s work is bringing it closer. He is an unusual researcher who has both created sophisticated tools to help us investigate the brain, and used these tools to make remarkable discoveries about the molecular basis of memory,” says Tsien.
Nakanishi’s achievements include:
- Expressing genes in frog eggs to find new genes and proteins associated with brain function
- Using this technique to identify receptors in the membranes of neurons that trigger the biochemical steps that lead to learning, memory and vision
- Understanding how some of these proteins act in the “electrical” circuits formed between neurons.
“Shigetada Nakanishi is laying the foundations for us to understand how our brains work – from the molecular level through to the complex interactions between networks of neurons,” says Peter Gruber, Chairman of the Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation.
The Neuroscience Prize honors leading scientists for distinguished contributions in the fields of the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system. The Foundation’s other international prizes are in Cosmology, Genetics, Justice, and Women’s Rights.
Nominations for the 2008 prizes are now open and close on December 31, 2007.
A profile of Nakanishi, photos, background information and nomination details for 2008 are available online at www.gruberprizes.org.