Updated 11-9-15: Lloyd Minor, MD, dean of Stanford's medical school, provided comment last evening on Karl Deisseroth's win. “The human brain has been called the most complicated object in the universe, but that hasn’t daunted Karl’s quest to understand it,” said Lloyd Minor, MD, dean of the School of Medicine. “If anything it seems the challenge has inspired him to develop techniques to see inside this most important of black boxes. This passion to understand the mind, combined with his intelligence and creativity, led to his pioneering role in creating optogenetics.”
***
11-8-15: We just learned that Stanford Medicine's Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD, has received the $3 million 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, an award designed to “honor transformative advances toward understanding living systems and extending human life.” Deisseroth was given the prize for his work in optogenetics, a technique using light to control the activity of the brain.
The award was presented tonight at a private black-tie, red-carpet ceremony in nearby Mountain View, Calif. “The suffering of the mentally ill and the mysteries of the brain are so deep that, to make progress, we need to take big risks and even blind leaps,” Deisseroth said after accepting his award from actress Kate Hudson. “The members of my lab have taken a leap: borrowing genes from microbes to control the brain.”
Congratulations, Dr. Deisseroth!
Previously: Inside the brain of optogenetics pioneer Karl Deisseroth, Stanford’s Karl Deisseroth awarded prestigious Albany Prize, Breaking through scientific barriers: Stanford hosts 2015 Breakthrough Prize winners, Lightning strikes twice: Optogenetics pioneer Karl Deisseroth’s newest technique renders tissues transparent, yet structurally intact and An in-depth look at the career of Stanford's Karl Deisseroth, "a major name in science"
Related: Head lights and Optogenetics earns Stanford professor Karl Deisseroth the Keio prize in medicine
Photo by Steve Fisch
