Institute News: Announcements

Liqun Luo named winner of the 2026 Scolnick Prize in Neuroscience

by Jill Crittenden |

Today, Stanford University neuroscientist Liqun Luo was announced as the recipient of the 2026 Edward M. Scolnick Prize in Neuroscience by the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT. Luo is the Ann and Bill Swindells Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, Professor of Biology, and Professor of Neurobiology by courtesy at Stanford University, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. The McGovern Institute presents the Scolnick Prize annually to recognize outstanding achievements in neuroscience.

“Liqun Luo’s development of first-in-kind genetic tools and detailed, innovative experimentation has succeeded in defining rules that govern how transient cell-cell contacts ultimately establish functional neural circuits in the developing brain,” says McGovern Institute Director Robert Desimone, who is also chair of the selection committee. “Luo’s methodologies for visualizing specific subsets of neurons based on their developmental trajectory or their activity are widely used in the field and have driven the identification of neurons responsible for a range of behaviors, including sleep and social interactions.”

Liqun Luo was born in Shanghai, China and attained his bachelor’s degree in molecular biology from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1986. He moved to the US for graduate studies at Brandeis University with Kalpana White, where he characterized the homolog of the Alzheimer’s amyloid precursor protein in the fruit fly Drosophila. After receiving a PhD in 1992, he moved to the University of California, San Francisco for postdoctoral training with Lily Jan and Yuh-Nung Jan where he published a number of papers about how small GTPase proteins regulate cellular morphology. Luo descends from a line of mentors trained by his scientific hero Seymour Benzer, who is widely known for founding the field of neurogenetics.

In 1996, Luo joined the faculty at Stanford University and established his own research group to focus on the molecular mechanisms of neuronal morphogenesis in the brain. Luo’s laboratory developed groundbreaking techniques—including Mosaic Analysis with a Repressible Cell Marker (MARCM) in fruit flies and Mosaic Analysis with Double Markers (MADM) in mice—that allowed the labeling and genetic manipulation of individual neurons within otherwise normal brains. These innovations gave researchers the ability to image genetically defined and altered neurons as they grow, connect, and change over time. Luo and his colleagues used these tools to reveal how neurons sculpt their branching structures, prune away unnecessary connections, and find the precise partners they need to form functional circuits. His work illuminated the molecular choreography that ensures each neuron wires into the correct network—an essential step in building circuits for sensation, movement, memory, and emotion. Another impactful innovation from Luo’s group, known as TRAP (Targeted Recombination in Active Populations), allows for the genetic tagging of neurons that are active during specific experiences. This technique has helped reveal how neural populations encode thirst, motivation, and long-term memories.

Most recently, Luo and his group have wholly defined the molecular codes that neurons use to recognize their correct partners in the olfactory system of fruit flies. His research demonstrated that a combinatorial pattern of cell-surface proteins precisely guides neurons to connect to one another and form a functional network. His team then succeeded in genetically altering the molecular cues that govern synaptic connections to rewire a neural circuit and produce a predicted change in the fly’s mating behavior.

Colleagues emphasize that Luo’s influence extends far beyond his own discoveries. Many of the molecular principles he has uncovered in simple model organisms have since proven to be conserved across species, underscoring their fundamental importance. His genetic tracing methods have been adopted by laboratories worldwide and applied not only in neuroscience but also in fields such as cancer biology, where tracing cell lineage is critical. He has also trained a generation of neuroscientists who have gone on to lead major research programs of their own, amplifying his impact across the field.

Luo has received numerous honors, including election to the National Academy of Sciences, the NAS Award in the Neurosciences, the Pradel Research Award, and the Society for Neuroscience’s Award for Education in Neuroscience. He has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator since 2005. He is also the author of Principles of Neurobiology, a widely used textbook that has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, and Italian.

The Scolnick Prize recognizes discoveries that advance the understanding of the brain and its disorders. Luo’s work exemplifies this mission, providing tools and conceptual frameworks for understanding how neural circuits form and are refined to become functional, and how mutations disrupt these processes. As neuroscience enters an era defined by increasingly precise control over brain circuits, Liqun Luo’s contributions stand as both enabling and visionary.

The McGovern Institute will award the Scolnick Prize to Luo on June 16, 2026. At 4:00 pm he will deliver a lecture titled “Wiring Specificity of Neural Circuits” to be followed by a reception at the McGovern Institute, 43 Vassar Street (building 46, room 3002) in Cambridge. The event is free and open to the public.

Feng Zhang inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame

by Julie Pryor |

Fifteen innovation pioneers, including McGovern Investigator Feng Zhang, have been inducted into the 2026 class of the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Zhang is being recognized for his innovations in gene editing and for sharing his resources and expertise broadly with the global scientific community.

In addition to his appointment at the McGovern Institute, Zhang is the James and Patricia Poitras Professor of Neuroscience at MIT and has joint appointments in the departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Biological Engineering. He is also an investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, an investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and co-director of the K. Lisa Yang and Hock E. Tan Center for Molecular Therapeutics at MIT.

“The National Inventors Hall of Fame is committed to illuminating the legacies of world-changing inventors and creating opportunities for the next generation to learn from these innovative role models,” said Monica Jones, Chief Executive Officer of the National Inventors Hall of Fame. “The inventors in our 2026 class have made contributions in fields as varied as semiconductor technology and portable inhalers. Induction into the Hall of Fame honors the significance of these advances, which have enhanced our daily lives and well-being.”

Zhang has invented transformative technologies to improve human health, including first demonstrating the use of engineered CRISPR-Cas9 systems for genome editing in human cells. He has co-founded several companies to commercialize these technologies. Through the nonprofit repository Addgene, by 2023 over 75,000 samples of Zhang’s reagents had been shared with researchers in more than 79 countries. He also has trained scientists from around the world in online research forums, in his workshops and in his lab.

“My mother would always emphasize that I should choose to do something useful for the world; to live a life that is meaningful and is adding something to the world, rather than just consuming from the world,” Zhang says. “That has been one of the strongest guiding factors for me.”

In partnership with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the Hall of Fame will honor Zhang and the other 2026 inductees on May 7 at an event in Washington DC.

Season’s Greetings from the McGovern Institute

by Julie Pryor |

This winter, may our connections spark new possibilities for the year ahead.

What makes us who we are? How do billions of neurons working together become our thoughts, feelings, and memories? How do they spark imagination and creativity? By tracing these connections, mapping how each neuron links to another, McGovern scientists are carving a path to uncover how these patterns generate the human experience. Because the intricate networks of neurons we’re working to understand, are the very ones that make understanding possible – empowering us to learn, discover, and create. And by exploring them, we see that being human at every level is about connection.

Happy holidays from your friends at the McGovern Institute!

Video credits:

Glass Ink Media and Julie Pryor (video)
Shepherd + Maudsleigh Studio | Megan Cascella (woodcut artist)

New MIT initiative seeks to transform rare brain disorders research

by Rubina Veerakone |

More than 300 million people worldwide are living with rare disorders — many of which have a genetic cause and affect the brain and nervous system — yet the vast majority of these conditions lack an approved therapy. Because each rare disorder affects fewer than 65 out of every 100,000 people, studying these disorders and creating new treatments for them is especially challenging.

Thanks to a generous philanthropic gift from Ana Méndez ’91 and Rajeev Jayavant ’86, EE ’88, SM ’88, MIT is now poised to fill the gaps in this research landscape. By establishing the Rare Brain Disorders Nexus — or RareNet — at MIT’s McGovern Institute, the alumni aim to convene leaders in neuroscience research, clinical medicine, patient advocacy, and industry to streamline the lab-to-clinic pipeline for rare brain disorder treatments.

“Ana and Rajeev’s commitment to MIT will form crucial partnerships to propel the translation of scientific discoveries into promising therapeutics and expand the Institute’s impact on the rare brain disorders community,” says MIT President Sally Kornbluth. “We are deeply grateful for their pivotal role in advancing such critical science and bringing attention to conditions that have long been overlooked.”

Building new coalitions

Several hurdles have slowed the lab-to-clinic pipeline for rare brain disorder research. It is difficult to secure a sufficient number of patients per study, and current research efforts are fragmented since each study typically focuses on a single disorder (there are more than 7,000 known rare disorders, according to the World Health Organization). Pharmaceutical companies are often reluctant to invest in emerging treatments due to a limited market size and the high costs associated with preparing drugs for commercialization.

Méndez and Jayavant envision that RareNet will finally break down these barriers. “Our hope is that RareNet will allow leaders in the field to come together under a shared framework and ignite scientific breakthroughs across multiple conditions. A discovery for one rare brain disorder could unlock new insights that are relevant to another,” says Jayavant. “By congregating the best minds in the field, we are confident that MIT will create the right scientific climate to produce drug candidates that may benefit a spectrum of uncommon conditions.”

Guoping Feng, the James W. (1963) and Patricia T. Poitras Professor in Neuroscience and associate director of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, will serve as RareNet’s inaugural faculty director. Feng holds a strong record of advancing studies on therapies for neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorders, Williams syndrome, and uncommon forms of epilepsy. His team’s gene therapy for Phelan-McDermid syndrome, a rare and profound autism spectrum disorder, has been licensed to Jaguar Gene Therapy and is currently undergoing clinical trials. “RareNet pioneers a unique model for biomedical research — one that is reimagining the role academia can play in developing therapeutics,” says Feng.

Image of SHANK3 therapy correctly finding its way to dendrites. Image: Guoping Feng
An early version of a gene therapy for SHANK3 mutations — linked to a rare brain disorder called Phelan-McDermid syndrome — correctly finds its way to neurons. Image: Feng lab

RareNet plans to deploy two major initiatives: a global consortium and a therapeutic pipeline accelerator. The consortium will form an international network of researchers, clinicians, and patient groups from the outset. It seeks to connect siloed research efforts, secure more patient samples, promote data sharing, and drive a strong sense of trust and goal alignment across the RareNet community. Partnerships within the consortium will support the aim of the therapeutic pipeline accelerator: to de-risk early lab discoveries and expedite their translation to clinic. By fostering more targeted collaborations — especially between academia and industry — the accelerator will prepare potential treatments for clinical use as efficiently as possible.

MIT labs are focusing on four uncommon conditions in the first wave of RareNet projects: Rett syndrome, prion disease, disorders linked to SYNGAP1 mutations, and Sturge-Weber syndrome. The teams are working to develop novel therapies that can slow, halt, or reverse dysfunctions in the brain and nervous system.

These efforts will build new bridges to connect key stakeholders across the rare brain disorders community and disrupt conventional research approaches. “Rajeev and I are motivated to seed powerful collaborations between MIT researchers, clinicians, patients, and industry,” says Méndez. “Guoping Feng clearly understands our goal to create an environment where foundational studies can thrive and seamlessly move toward clinical impact.”

“Patient and caregiver experiences, and our foreseeable impact on their lives, will guide us and remain at the forefront of our work,” Feng adds. “For far too long the rare brain disorders community has been deprived of life-changing treatments — and, importantly, hope. RareNet gives us the opportunity to transform how we study these conditions and to do so at a moment when it’s needed more than ever.”

 

New gift expands mental illness studies at Poitras Center for Psychiatric Disorders Research

by Julie Pryor |

One in every eight people—970 million globally—live with mental illness, according to the World Health Organization, with depression and anxiety being the most common mental health conditions worldwide. Existing therapies for complex psychiatric disorders like depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia have limitations, and federal funding to address these shortcomings is growing increasingly uncertain.

Jim and Pat Poitras
James and Patricia Poitras at an event co-hosted by the McGovern Institute and Autism Speaks. Photo: Justin Knight

Patricia and James Poitras ’63 have committed $8 million to the Poitras Center for Psychiatric Disorders Research to launch pioneering research initiatives aimed at uncovering the brain basis of major mental illness and accelerating the development of novel treatments.

“Federal funding rarely supports the kind of bold, early-stage research that has the potential to transform our understanding of psychiatric illness. Pat and I want to help fill that gap—giving researchers the freedom to follow their most promising leads, even when the path forward isn’t guaranteed,” says James Poitras, who is chair of the McGovern Institute Board.

Their latest gift builds upon their legacy of philanthropic support for psychiatric disorders research at MIT, which now exceeds $46 million.

“With deep gratitude for Jim and Pat’s visionary support, we are eager to launch a bold set of studies aimed at unraveling the neural and cognitive underpinnings of major mental illnesses,” says Robert Desimone, director of the McGovern Institute, home to the Poitras Center. “Together, these projects represent a powerful step toward transforming how we understand and treat mental illness.”

A legacy of support

Soon after joining the McGovern Institute Leadership Board in 2006, the Poitrases made a $20 million commitment to establish the Poitras Center for Psychiatric Disorders Research at MIT. The center’s goal, to improve human health by addressing the root causes of complex psychiatric disorders, is deeply personal to them both.

“We had decided many years ago that our philanthropic efforts would be directed towards psychiatric research. We could not have imagined then that this perfect synergy between research at MIT’s McGovern Institute and our own philanthropic goals would develop,” recalls Patricia.

The center supports research at the McGovern Institute and collaborative projects with institutions such as the Broad Institute, McLean Hospital, Mass General Brigham and other clinical research centers. Since its establishment in 2007, the center has enabled advances in psychiatric research including the development of a machine learning “risk calculator” for bipolar disorder, the use of brain imaging to predict treatment outcomes for anxiety, and studies demonstrating that mindfulness can improve mental health in adolescents.

A scientist speaks at a podium with an image of DNA on the wall behind him.
Feng Zhang, the James and Patricia Poitras Professor of Neuroscience at MIT, delivers a lecture at the Poitras Center’s 10th anniversary celebration in 2017. Photo: Justin Knight

For the past decade, the Poitrases have also fueled breakthroughs in McGovern Investigator Feng Zhang’s lab, backing the invention of powerful CRISPR systems and other molecular tools that are transforming biology and medicine. Their support has enabled the Zhang team to engineer new delivery vehicles for gene therapy, including vehicles capable of carrying genetic payloads that were once out of reach. The lab has also advanced innovative RNA-guided gene engineering tools such as NovaIscB, published in Nature Biotechnology in May 2025. These revolutionary genome editing and delivery technologies hold promise for the next generation of therapies needed for serious psychiatric illness.

In addition to fueling research in the center, the Poitras family has gifted two endowed professorships—the James and Patricia Poitras Professor of Neuroscience at MIT, currently held by Feng Zhang, and the James W. (1963) and Patricia T. Poitras Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, held by Guoping Feng—and an annual postdoctoral fellowship at the McGovern Institute.

New initiatives at the Poitras Center

The Poitras family’s latest commitment to the Poitras Center will launch an ambitious set of new projects that bring together neuroscientists, clinicians, and computational experts to probe underpinnings of complex psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia, anxiety, and depression. These efforts reflect the center’s core mission: to speed scientific discovery and therapeutic innovation in the field of psychiatric brain disorders research.

McGovern cognitive neuroscientists Evelina Fedorenko PhD ‘07 and Nancy Kanwisher ’80, PhD ’86, the Walter A. Rosenblith Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience—in collaboration with psychiatrist Ann Shinn of McLean Hospital—will explore how altered inner speech and reasoning contribute to the symptoms of schizophrenia. They will collect functional MRI data from individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia and matched controls as they perform reasoning tasks. The goal is to identify the brain activity patterns that underlie impaired reasoning in schizophrenia, a core cognitive disruption in the disorder.

Three women wearing name tags smile for hte camera.
Patricia Poitras (center) with McGovern Investigators Nancy Kanwisher ’80, PhD ’86 (left) and Martha Constantine-Paton (right) at the Poitras Center’s 10th anniversary celebration in 2017. Photo: Justin Knight

A complementary line of investigation will focus on the role of inner speech—the “voice in our head” that shapes thought and self-awareness. The team will conduct a large-scale online behavioral study of neurotypical individuals to analyze how inner speech characteristics correlate with schizophrenia-spectrum traits. This will be followed by neuroimaging work comparing brain architecture among individuals with strong or weak inner voices and people with schizophrenia, with the aim of discovering neural markers linked to self-talk and disrupted cognition.

A different project led by McGovern neuroscientist Mark Harnett and 2024–2026 Poitras Center Postdoctoral Fellow Cynthia Rais focuses on how ketamine—an increasingly used antidepressant—alters brain circuits to produce rapid and sustained improvements in mood. Despite its clinical success, ketamine’s mechanisms of action remain poorly understood. The Harnett lab is using sophisticated tools to track how ketamine affects synaptic communication and large-scale brain network dynamics, particularly in models of treatment-resistant depression. By mapping these changes at both the cellular and systems levels, the team hopes to reveal how ketamine lifts mood so quickly—and inform the development of safer, longer-lasting antidepressants.

Guoping Feng is leveraging a new animal model of depression to uncover the brain circuits that drive major depressive disorder. The new animal model provides a powerful system for studying the intricacies of mood regulation. Feng’s team is using state-of-the-art molecular tools to identify the specific genes and cell types involved in this circuit, with the goal of developing targeted treatments that can fine-tune these emotional pathways.

“This is one of the most promising models we have for understanding depression at a mechanistic level,” says Feng, who is also associate director of the McGovern Institute. “It gives us a clear target for future therapies.”

Another novel approach to treating mood disorders comes from the lab of James DiCarlo, the Peter de Florez Professor of Neuroscience at MIT, who is exploring the brain’s visual-emotional interface as a therapeutic tool for anxiety. The amygdala, a key emotional center in the brain, is heavily influenced by visual input. DiCarlo’s lab is using advanced computational models to design visual scenes that may subtly shift emotional processing in the brain—essentially using sight to regulate mood. Unlike traditional therapies, this strategy could offer a noninvasive, drug-free option for individuals suffering from anxiety.

Together, these projects exemplify the kind of interdisciplinary, high-impact research that the Poitras Center was established to support.

“Mental illness affects not just individuals, but entire families who often struggle in silence and uncertainty,” adds Patricia. “Our hope is that Poitras Center scientists will continue to make important advancements and spark novel treatments for complex mental health disorders and most of all, give families living with these conditions a renewed sense of hope for the future.”

MIT’s McGovern Institute and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences welcome new faculty member Sven Dorkenwald

by Julie Pryor |

The McGovern Institute and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences are pleased to announce the appointment of Sven Dorkenwald as an assistant professor starting in January 2026. A trailblazer in the field of computational neuroscience, Dorkenwald is recognized for his leadership in connectomics—an emerging discipline focused on reconstructing and analyzing neural circuitry at unprecedented scale and detail. 

“We are thrilled to welcome Sven to MIT” says McGovern Institute Director Robert Desimone. “He brings visionary science and a collaborative spirit to a rapidly advancing area of brain and cognitive sciences and his appointment strengthens MIT’s position at the forefront of brain research.” 

Dorkenwald’s research is driven by a bold vision: to develop and apply cutting-edge computational methods that reveal how brain circuits are organized and how they give rise to complex computations. His innovative work has led to transformative advances in the reconstruction of connectomes (detailed neural maps) from nanometer-scale electron microscopy images. He has championed open team science and data sharing and played a central role in producing the first connectome of an entire fruit fly brain—a groundbreaking achievement that is reshaping our understanding of sensory processing and brain circuit function. 

“Sven is a rising leader in computational neuroscience who has already made significant contributions toward advancing our understanding of the brain,” says Michale Fee, the Glen V. and Phyllis F. Dorflinger Professor of Neuroscience, and Department Head of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. “He brings a combination of technical expertise, a collaborative mindset, and a strong commitment to open science that will be invaluable to our department. I’m pleased to welcome him to our community and look forward to the impact he will have.” 

Dorkenwald earned his BS in physics in 2014 and MS in computer engineering in 2017 from the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He began his research in connectomics as an undergraduate in the group of Winfried Denk at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research and Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology.  Dorkenwald went on to complete his PhD at Princeton University in 2023, where he studied both computer science and neuroscience under the mentorship of Sebastian Seung and Mala Murthy. 

All 139,255 neurons in the brain of an adult fruit fly reconstructed by the FlyWire Consortium, with each neuron uniquely color-coded. Render by Tyler Sloan. Image: Sven Dorkenwald

As a PhD student at Princeton, Dorkenwald spearheaded the FlyWire Consortium, a group of more than 200 scientists, gamers, and proofreaders who combined their skills to create the fruit fly connectome. More than 20 million scientific images of the adult fruit fly brain  were added to an AI model that traced each neuron and synapse in exquisite detail. Members of the consortium then checked the results produced by the AI model and pieced them together into a complete, three-dimensional map. With over 140,000 neurons, it is the most complex brain completely mapped to date. The findings were published in a special issue of Nature in 2024. 

Dorkenwald’s work also played a key role in the MICrONS’ consortium effort to reconstruct a cubic millimeter connectome of the mouse visual cortex. Within the MICrONS effort, he co-lead the development of the software infrastructure, CAVE, that enables scientists to collaboratively edit and analyze large connectomics datasets, including FlyWire’s. The findings of the MICrONS consortium were published in a special issue of Nature in 2025. 

Dorkenwald is currently a Shanahan Fellow at the Allen Institute and the University of Washington. He also serves as a visiting faculty researcher at Google Research, where he has been developing machine learning approaches for the annotation of cell reconstructions as part of the Neuromancer team led by Viren Jain.  

As an investigator at the McGovern Institute and an assistant professor in the department of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT, Dorkenwald  plans to develop computational approaches to overcome challenges in scaling connectomics to whole mammalian brains with the goal of advancing our mechanistic understanding of neuronal circuits and analyzing how they compare across regions and species. 

 

Researchers present bold ideas for AI at MIT Generative AI Impact Consortium kickoff event

by Amanda Diehl | MIT Schwarzman College of Computing |

Launched in February of this year, the MIT Generative AI Impact Consortium (MGAIC), a presidential initiative led by MIT’s Office of Innovation and Strategy and administered by the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, issued a call for proposals, inviting researchers from across MIT to submit ideas for innovative projects studying high-impact uses of generative AI models.

The call received 180 submissions from nearly 250 faculty members, spanning all of MIT’s five schools and the college. The overwhelming response across the Institute exemplifies the growing interest in AI and follows in the wake of MIT’s Generative AI Week and call for impact papers. Fifty-five proposals were selected for MGAIC’s inaugural seed grants, with several more selected to be funded by the consortium’s founding company members.

Over 30 funding recipients presented their proposals to the greater MIT community at a kickoff event on May 13. Anantha P. Chandrakasan, chief innovation and strategy officer and dean of the School of Engineering who is head of the consortium, welcomed the attendees and thanked the consortium’s founding industry members.

“The amazing response to our call for proposals is an incredible testament to the energy and creativity that MGAIC has sparked at MIT. We are especially grateful to our founding members, whose support and vision helped bring this endeavor to life,” adds Chandrakasan. “One of the things that has been most remarkable about MGAIC is that this is a truly cross-Institute initiative. Deans from all five schools and the college collaborated in shaping and implementing it.”

Vivek F. Farias, the Patrick J. McGovern (1959) Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and co-faculty director of the consortium with Tim Kraska, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science in the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), emceed the afternoon of five-minute lightning presentations.

Presentation highlights include:

“AI-Driven Tutors and Open Datasets for Early Literacy Education,” presented by Ola Ozernov-Palchik, a research scientist at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, proposed a refinement for AI-tutors for pK-7 students to potentially decrease literacy disparities.

“Developing jam_bots: Real-Time Collaborative Agents for Live Human-AI Musical Improvisation,” presented by Anna Huang, assistant professor of music and assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science, and Joe Paradiso, the Alexander W. Dreyfoos (1954) Professor in Media Arts and Sciences at the MIT Media Lab, aims to enhance human-AI musical collaboration in real-time for live concert improvisation.

“GENIUS: GENerative Intelligence for Urban Sustainability,” presented by Norhan Bayomi, a postdoc at the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative and a research assistant in the Urban Metabolism Group, which aims to address the critical gap of a standardized approach in evaluating and benchmarking cities’ climate policies.

Georgia Perakis, the John C Head III Dean (Interim) of the MIT Sloan School of Management and professor of operations management, operations research, and statistics, who serves as co-chair of the GenAI Dean’s oversight group with Dan Huttenlocher, dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, ended the event with closing remarks that emphasized “the readiness and eagerness of our community to lead in this space.”

“This is only the beginning,” he continued. “We are at the front edge of a historic moment — one where MIT has the opportunity, and the responsibility, to shape the future of generative AI with purpose, with excellence, and with care.”

Twenty-five years after its founding, the McGovern Institute is shaping brain science and improving human lives at a global scale

by Julie Pryor |

In 2000, Patrick J. McGovern ’59 and Lore Harp McGovern made an extraordinary gift to establish the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, driven by their deep curiosity about the human mind and their belief in the power of science to change lives. Their $350 million pledge began with a simple yet audacious vision: to understand the human brain in all its complexity and to leverage that understanding for the betterment of humanity.

Twenty-five years later, the McGovern Institute stands as a testament to the power of interdisciplinary collaboration, continuing to shape our understanding of the brain and improve the quality of life for people worldwide.

In the Beginning

“This is by any measure a truly historic moment for MIT,” said MIT’s 15th President Charles M. Vest during his opening remarks at an event in 2000 to celebrate the McGovern gift agreement. “The creation of the McGovern Institute will launch one of the most profound and important scientific ventures of this century in what surely will be a cornerstone of MIT scientific contributions from the decades ahead.”

Vest tapped Phillip A. Sharp, MIT Institute Professor Emeritus of Biology and Nobel laureate, to lead the institute and appointed six MIT professors — Emilio Bizzi, Martha Constantine-Paton, Ann Graybiel PhD ’71, H. Robert Horvitz ’68, Nancy Kanwisher ’80, PhD ’86, and Tomaso Poggio — to represent its founding faculty.  Construction began in 2003 on Building 46, a 376,000 square foot research complex at the northeastern edge of campus. MIT’s new “gateway from the north” would eventually house the McGovern Institute, the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, and MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.

Group photo in front of construction sign.
Patrick J. McGovern ’59 and Lore Harp McGovern gather with faculty members and MIT administration at the groundbreaking of MIT Building 46 in 2003. Photo: Donna Coveney

Robert Desimone, the Doris and Don Berkey Professor of Neuroscience at MIT,  succeeded Sharp as director of the McGovern Institute in 2005, and assembled a distinguished roster of 22 faculty members, including a Nobel laureate, a Breakthrough Prize winner, two National Medal of Science/Technology awardees, and 15 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

A Quarter Century of Innovation

On April 11, 2025, the McGovern Institute celebrated its 25th anniversary with a half day symposium featuring presentations by MIT Institute Professor Robert Langer, alumni speakers from various McGovern labs, and Desimone, who is in his twentieth year as director of the institute.

Desimone highlighted the institute’s recent discoveries, including the development of the CRISPR genome-editing system, which has culminated in the world’s first CRISPR gene therapy approved for humans — a remarkable achievement that is ushering in a new era of transformative medicine. In other milestones, McGovern researchers developed the first prosthetic limb fully controlled by the body’s nervous system; a flexible probe that taps into gut-brain communication; an expansion microscopy technique that paves the way for biology labs around the world to perform nanoscale imaging; and advanced computational models that demonstrate how we see, hear, use language, and even think about what others are thinking. Equally transformative has been the McGovern Institute’s work in neuroimaging, uncovering the architecture of human thought and establishing markers that signal the early emergence of mental illness, before symptoms even appear.

Synergy and Open Science

“I am often asked what makes us different from other neuroscience institutes and programs around the world,” says Desimone. “My answer is simple. At the McGovern Institute, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

Many discoveries at the McGovern Institute have depended on collaborations across multiple labs, ranging from biological engineering to human brain imaging and artificial intelligence. In modern brain research, significant advances often require the joint expertise of people working in neurophysiology, behavior, computational analysis, neuroanatomy, and molecular biology. More than a dozen different MIT departments are represented by McGovern faculty and graduate students, and this synergy has led to insights and innovations that are far greater than what any single discipline could achieve alone.

Also baked into the McGovern ethos is a spirit of open science, where newly developed technologies are shared with colleagues around the world. Through hospital partnerships for example, McGovern researchers are testing their tools and therapeutic interventions in clinical settings, accelerating their discoveries into real-world solutions.

The McGovern Legacy  

Hundreds of scientific papers have emerged from McGovern labs over the past 25 years, but most faculty would argue that it’s the people, the young researchers, that truly define the McGovern Institute. Award-winning faculty often attract the brightest young minds, but many McGovern faculty also serve as mentors, creating a diverse and vibrant scientific community that is setting the global standard for brain research and its applications. Nancy Kanwisher ’80 PhD ’86, for example, has guided more than 70 doctoral students and postdocs who have gone on to become leading scientists around the world. Three of her former students, Evelina Fedorenko PhD ‘07, Josh McDermott PhD ‘06, and the John W. Jarve (1978) Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Rebecca Saxe PhD ‘03, are now her colleagues at the McGovern Institute. Other McGovern alumni shared stories of mentorship, science, and real-world impact at the 25th anniversary symposium.

Group photo of four smiling scientists.
Nancy Kanwisher (center) with former students-turned-colleagues Evelina Fedorenko (left), Josh McDermott, and Rebecca Saxe (right). Photo: Steph Stevens

Looking to the future, the McGovern community is more committed than ever to unraveling the mysteries of the brain and making a meaningful difference in lives of individuals at a global scale.

“By promoting team science, open communication, and cross-discipline partnerships,” says institute co-founder Lore Harp McGovern, “our culture demonstrates how individual expertise can be amplified through collective effort. I am honored to be the co-founder of this incredible institution – onward to the next 25 years!”

Leslie Vosshall awarded the 2025 Scolnick Prize in Neuroscience

by Jill Crittenden |

Today the McGovern Institute at MIT announces that the 2025 Edward M. Scolnick Prize in Neuroscience will be awarded to Leslie Vosshall, the Robin Chemers Neustein Professor at The Rockefeller University and Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Vosshall is being recognized for her discovery of the neural mechanisms underlying mosquito host-seeking behavior. The Scolnick Prize is awarded annually by the McGovern Institute for outstanding achievements in neuroscience.

“Leslie Vosshall’s vision to apply decades of scientific know-how in a model insect to bear on one of the greatest human health threats, the mosquito, is awe-inspiring,” says McGovern Institute Director and chair of the selection committee, Robert Desimone. “Vosshall brought together academic and industry scientists to create the first fully annotated genome of the deadly Aedes aegypti mosquito and she became the first to apply powerful CRISPR-Cas9 editing to study this species.”

Vosshall was born in Switzerland, moved to the US as a child and worked throughout high school and college in her uncle’s laboratory, alongside Gerald Weissman, at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole. During this time, she published a number of papers on cell aggregation and neutrophil signaling and received a BA in 1987 from Columbia University. She went to graduate school at The Rockefeller University where she first began working on the genetic model organism, the fruit fly Drosophila. Her mentor was Michael Young, who had just recently cloned the circadian rhythm gene period, work for which he later shared the Nobel Prize. Vosshall contributed to this work by showing that the gene timeless is required for rhythmic cycling of the PERIOD protein in and out of a cell’s nucleus and that this is required in only a subset of brain cells to drive circadian behaviors.

For her postdoctoral research, Vosshall returned to Columbia University in 1993 to join the laboratory of Richard Axel, also a future Nobel Laureate. There, Vosshall began her studies of olfaction and was one of the first to clone olfactory receptors in fruit flies. She mapped the expression pattern of each of the fly’s 60 or so olfactory receptors to individual sensory neurons and showed that each sensory neuron has a stereotyped projection into the brain. This work revealed that there is a topological map of brain activity responses for different odorants.

Vosshall started her own laboratory to study the mechanisms of olfaction and olfactory behavior in 2000, at The Rockefeller University. She rose through the ranks to receive tenure in 2006 and full professorship in 2010. Vosshall’s group was initially focused on the classic fruit fly model organism Drosophila but, in 2013, they showed that some of the same molecular mechanisms for olfaction in fruit flies are used by mosquitoes to find human hosts. From that point on, Vosshall rapidly applied her vast expertise in bioengineering to unravel the brain circuits underlying the behavior of the mosquito Aedes aegypti. This mosquito is responsible for transmission of yellow fever, dengue fever, zika fever and more, making it one of the deadliest animals to humankind.

Close-up of mosquito on human skin.
Vosshall identified oils produced by the skin of some people that make them “mosquito magnets.” Photo: Alex Wild

Mosquitoes have evolved to specifically prey on humans and transmit millions of cases of deadly diseases around the globe. Vosshall’s laboratory is filled with mosquitoes in which her team induces various gene mutations to identify the molecular circuits that mosquitoes use to hunt and feed on humans. In 2022, Vosshall received press around the world for identifying oils produced by the skin of some people that make them “mosquito magnets.”  Vosshall further showed that olfactory receptors have an unusual distribution pattern within the antennae of mosquitoes that allow mosquitoes to detect a whole slew of human scents, in addition to their ability to detect human’s warmth and breath. Vosshall’s team has also unraveled the molecular basis for mosquitoes’ avoidance of DEET and identified a novel repellent and identified genes for how they choose where to lay eggs and resist drought. Vosshall’s brilliant application of genome engineering to understand a wide range of mosquito behaviors has profound implications for human health. Moreover, since shifting her research to the mosquito, seven postdoctoral researchers that Vosshall mentored have established their own mosquito research laboratories at Boston University, Columbia University, Yale University, Johns Hopkins University, Princeton University, Florida International University, and the University of British Columbia.

Vosshall’s professional service is remarkable – she has served on innumerable committees at Rockefeller University and has participated in outreach activities around the globe, even starring in the feature length film “The Fly Room.” She began serving as the Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of HHMI in 2022 and previously served as Associate Director and Director of the Kavli Neural Systems Institute from 2015 to 2021. She has served as an editor for numerous journals, on the Board of Directors for the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation, the McKnight Foundation and more, and co-organized over a dozen conferences. Her achievements have been recognized by the Dickson Prize in Medicine (2024), the Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize (2022), and the Pradel Research Award (2020). She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, American Philosophical Society, and American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The McGovern Institute will award the Scolnick Prize to Vosshall on May 9, 2025. At 4:00 pm she will deliver a lecture titled “Mosquitoes: neurobiology of the world’s most dangerous animal” to be followed by a reception at the McGovern Institute, 43 Vassar Street (building 46, room 3002) in Cambridge. The event is free and open to the public.

Evelina Fedorenko receives Troland Award from National Academy of Sciences

by Julie Pryor |

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) announced today that McGovern Investigator Evelina Fedorenko will receive a 2025 Troland Research Award for her groundbreaking contributions towards understanding the language network in the human brain.

The Troland Research Award is given annually to recognize unusual achievement by early-career researchers within the broad spectrum of experimental psychology.

Two women and one child looking at a computer screen.
McGovern Investigator Ev Fedorenko (center) looks at a young subject’s brain scan in the Martinos Imaging Center at MIT. Photo: Alexandra Sokhina

Fedorenko, who is an associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT, is interested in how minds and brains create language. Her lab is unpacking the internal architecture of the brain’s language system and exploring the relationship between language and various cognitive, perceptual, and motor systems.  Her novel methods combine precise measures of an individual’s brain organization with innovative computational modeling to make fundamental discoveries about the computations that underlie the uniquely human ability for language.

Fedorenko has shown that the language network is selective for language processing over diverse non-linguistic processes that have been argued to share computational demands with language, such as math, music, and social reasoning. Her work has also demonstrated that syntactic processing is not localized to a particular region within the language network, and every brain region that responds to syntactic processing is at least as sensitive to word meanings.

She has also shown that representations from neural network language models, such as ChatGPT, are similar to those in the human language brain areas. Fedorenko also highlighted that although language models can master linguistic rules and patterns, they are less effective at using language in real-world situations. In the human brain, that kind of functional competence is distinct from formal language competence, she says, requiring not just language-processing circuits but also brain areas that store knowledge of the world, reason, and interpret social interactions. Contrary to a prominent view that language is essential for thinking, Fedorenko argues that language is not the medium of thought and is primarily a tool for communication.

A probabilistic atlas of the human language network based on >800 individuals (center) and sample individual language networks, which illustrate inter-individual variability in the precise locations and shapes of the language areas. Image: Ev Fedorenko

Ultimately, Fedorenko’s cutting-edge work is uncovering the computations and representations that fuel language processing in the brain. She will receive the Troland Award this April, during the annual meeting of the NAS in Washington DC.