Institute News: Awards & Honors

Joshua Sanes awarded the 2020 Scolnick Prize

by Sabbi Lall |

The McGovern Institute announced today that Joshua Sanes is the 2020 recipient of the Edward M. Scolnick Prize in Neuroscience. Sanes is being recognized for his numerous contributions to our understanding of synapse development. It was Sanes who focused the power of molecular genetics toward understanding how synapses are built. He is currently the Jeff C. Tarr Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and the Paul J. Finnegan Family Director at the Center for Brain Science at Harvard University.

“We have followed Josh’s work for many years, and the award honors the profound impact he has had on neuroscience” says Robert Desimone, director of the McGovern Institute and the chair of the committee. “His work on synapse development and connectivity is critical to understanding brain disorders, and will also be essential to deciphering the highest functions of the brain.”

Individual neurons are labeled in the hippocampus of the Brainbow mouse. The Sanes lab developed this method, yielding some of the most iconic images in neuroscience. Image: Josh Sanes

While the space between neurons at the synapse is called a cleft, it has a defined structure, and as a postdoctoral fellow and faculty member at Washington University, Sanes studied the extracellular matrix proteins that line this region in the motor system. This work provided a critical entry point to studying synaptic development in the central nervous system and Sanes went on to examine how synapses form with exquisite specificity. In pursuit of understanding interactions in the nervous system, Sanes developed novel cell-marking methods that allow neuronal connectivity to be traced using multi-colored fluorescent markers. This work led to development of the ‘Brainbow’ mouse, yielding some of the most striking and iconic images in recent neuroscience. This line of research has recently leveraged modern sequencing techniques that have even identified an entirely novel cell type in the long-studied retina. The methodologies and findings from the Sanes lab have had a global impact, and deepened our understanding of how neurons find one another and connect.

Sanes becomes the 16th researcher to win the prestigious prize, established in 2004 by Merck to honor Scolnick, who spent 17 years holding the top research post at Merck Research Laboratories. Sanes will deliver the Scolnick Prize lecture at the McGovern Institute on April 27th, 2020 at 4:00pm in the Singleton Auditorium of MIT’s Brain and Cognitive Sciences Complex (Bldg 46-3002), 43 Vassar Street in Cambridge. The event is free and open to the public.

 

CRISPR makes several Discovery of the Decade lists

by Sabbi Lall |

As we reach milestones in time, it’s common to look back and review what we learned. A number of media outlets, including National Geographic, NPR, The Hill, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Nature, Mental Floss, CNBC, and others, recognized the profound impact of genome editing, adding CRISPR to their discovery of the decade lists.

“In 2013, [CRISPR] was used for genome editing in a eukaryotic cell, forever altering the course of biotechnology and, ultimately our relationship with our DNA.”
— Popular Mechanics

It’s rare for a molecular system to become a household name, but in less than a decade, CRISPR has done just that. McGovern Investigator Feng Zhang played a key role in leveraging CRISPR, an immune system found originally in prokaryotic – bacterial and archaeal – cells, into a broadly customizable toolbox for genomic manipulation in eukaryotic (animal and plant) cells. CRISPR allows scientists to easily and quickly make changes to genomes, has revolutionized the biomedical sciences, and has major implications for control of infectious disease, agriculture, and treatment of genetic disorders.

Nancy Kanwisher to receive George A. Miller Prize in Cognitive Neuroscience

by Julie Pryor |

Nancy Kanwisher, the Walter A. Rosenblith Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at MIT, has been named this year’s winner of the George A. Miller Prize in Cognitive Neuroscience. The award, given annually by the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS), recognizes individuals “whose distinguished research is at the cutting-edge of their discipline with realized or future potential, to revolutionize cognitive neuroscience.”

Kanwisher studies the functional organization of the human mind and, over the last 20 years, her lab has played a central role in the identification of several dozen regions of the cortex in humans that are engaged in particular components of perception and cognition. She is perhaps best known for identifying brain regions specialized for recognizing faces.

Kanwisher will deliver her prize lecture, “Functional imaging of the human brain: A window into the architecture of the mind” at the 2020 CNS annual meeting in Boston this March.

McGovern scientists named STAT Wunderkinds

by Sabbi Lall |

McGovern researchers Sam Rodriques and Jonathan Strecker have been named to the class of 2019 STAT wunderkinds. This group of 22 researchers was selected from a national pool of hundreds of nominees, and aims to recognize trail-blazing scientists that are on the cusp of launching their careers but not yet fully independent.

“We were thrilled to receive this news,” said Robert Desimone, director of the McGovern Institute. “It’s great to see the remarkable progress being made by young scientists in McGovern labs be recognized in this way.”

Finding context

Sam Rodriques works in Ed Boyden’s lab at the McGovern Institute, where he develops new technologies that enable researchers to understand the behaviors of cells within their native spatial and temporal context.

“Psychiatric disease is a huge problem, but only a handful of first-in-class drugs for psychiatric diseases approved since the 1960s,” explains Rodriques, also affiliated with the MIT Media Lab and Broad Institute. “Coming up with novel cures is going to require new ways to generate hypotheses about the biological processes that underpin disease.”

Rodriques also works on several technologies within the Boyden lab, including preserving spatial information in molecular mapping technologies, finding ways of following neural connectivity in the brain, and Implosion Fabrication, or “Imp Fab.” This nanofabrication technology allows objects to be evenly shrunk to the nanoscale and has a wide range of potential applications, including building new miniature devices for examining neural function.

“I was very surprised, not expecting it at all!” explains Rodriques when asked about becoming a STAT Wunderkind, “I’m sure that all of the hundreds of applicants are very accomplished scientists, and so to be chosen like this is really an honor.”

New tools for gene editing

Jonathan Strecker is currently a postdoc working in Feng Zhang’s lab, and associated with both the McGovern Institute and Broad Institute. While CRISPR-Cas9 continues to have a profound effect and huge potential for research and biomedical, and agricultural applications, the ability to move entire genes into specific target locations remained out reach.

“Genome editing with CRISPR-Cas enzymes typically involves cutting and disrupting genes, or making certain base edits,” explains Strecker, “however, inserting large pieces of DNA is still hard to accomplish.”

As a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of CRISPR pioneer Feng Zhang, Strecker led research that showed how large sequences could be inserted into a genome at a given location.

“Nature often has interesting solutions to these problems and we were fortunate to identify and characterize a remarkable CRISPR system from cyanobacteria that functions as a programmable transposase.”

Importantly, the system he discovered, called CAST, doesn’t require cellular machinery to insert DNA. This is important as it means that CAST could work in many cell types, including those that have stopped dividing such as neurons, something that is being pursued.

By finding new sources of inspiration, be it nature or art, both Rodriques and Strecker join a stellar line up of young investigators being recognized for creativity and innovation.

 

Mehrdad Jazayeri and Hazel Sive awarded 2019 School of Science teaching prizes

by MIT School of Science |

The School of Science has announced that the recipients of the school’s 2019 Teaching Prizes for Graduate and Undergraduate Education are Mehrdad Jazayeri and Hazel Sive. Nominated by peers and students, the faculty members chosen to receive these prizes are selected to acknowledge their exemplary efforts in teaching graduate and undergraduate students.

Mehrdad Jazayeri, an associate professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, is awarded the prize for graduate education for 9.014 (Quantitative Methods and Computational Models in Neuroscience). Earlier this year, he was recognized for excellence in graduate teaching by the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and won a Graduate Student Council teaching award in 2016. In their nomination letters, peers and students alike remarked that he displays not only great knowledge, but extraordinary skill in teaching, most notably by ensuring everyone learns the material. Jazayeri does so by considering students’ diverse backgrounds and contextualizing subject material to relatable applications in various fields of science according to students’ interests. He also improves and adjusts the course content, pace, and intensity in response to student input via surveys administered throughout the semester.

Hazel Sive, a professor in the Department of Biology, member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, and associate member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, is awarded the prize for undergraduate education. A MacVicar Faculty Fellow, she has been recognized with MIT’s highest undergraduate teaching award in the past, as well as the 2003 School of Science Teaching Prize for Graduate Education. Exemplified by her nominations, Sive’s laudable teaching career at MIT continues to receive praise from undergraduate students who take her classes. In recent post-course evaluations, students commended her exemplary and dedicated efforts to her field and to their education.

The School of Science welcomes nominations for the teaching prize in the spring semester of each academic year. Nominations can be submitted at the school’s website.

Ed Boyden wins premier Royal Society honor

by Sabbi Lall |

Edward S. Boyden, the Y. Eva Tan Professor in Neurotechnology at MIT, has been awarded the 2019 Croonian Medal and Lecture by the Royal Society. Twenty-four medals and awards are announced by the Royal Society each year, honoring exceptional researchers who are making outstanding contributions to science.

“The Royal Society gives an array of medals and awards to scientists who have done exceptional, ground-breaking work,” explained Sir Venki Ramakrishnan, President of the Royal Society. “This year, it is again a pleasure to see these awards bestowed on scientists who have made such distinguished and far-reaching contributions in their fields. I congratulate and thank them for their efforts.”

Boyden wins the medal and lecture in recognition of his research that is expanding our understanding of the brain. This includes his critical role in the development of optogenetics, a technique for controlling brain activity with light, and his invention of expansion microscopy. Croonian Medal laureates include notable luminaries of science and neurobiology.

“It is a great honor to be selected to receive this medal, especially
since it was also given to people such as Santiago Ramon y Cajal, the
founder of modern neuroscience,” says Boyden. “This award reflects the great work of many fantastic students, postdocs, and collaborators who I’ve had the privilege to work with over the years.”

The award includes an invitation to deliver the premier British lecture in the biological sciences, given annually at the Royal Society in London. At the lecture, the winner is awarded a medal and a gift of £10,000. This announcement comes shortly after Boyden was co-awarded the Warren Alpert Prize for his role in developing optogenetics.

History of the Croonian Medal and Lecture

William Croone, pictured, envisioned an annual lecture that is the premier biological sciences medal and lecture at the Royal Society
William Croone, FRS Photo credit: Royal College of Physicians, London

The lectureship was conceived by William Croone FRS, one of the original Fellows of the Society based in London. Among the papers left on his death in 1684 were plans to endow two lectureships, one at the Royal Society and the other at the Royal College of Physicians. His widow later bequeathed the means to carry out the scheme. The lecture series began in 1738.

 

 

Ed Boyden holds the titles of Investigator, McGovern Institute; Y. Eva Tan Professor in Neurotechnology at MIT; Leader, Synthetic Neurobiology Group, MIT Media Lab; Professor, Biological Engineering, Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT Media Lab; Co-Director, MIT Center for Neurobiological Engineering; Member, MIT Center for Environmental Health Sciences, Computational and Systems Biology Initiative, and Koch Institute.

Ed Boyden receives 2019 Warren Alpert Prize

by Sabbi Lall |

The 2019 Warren Alpert Foundation Prize has been awarded to four scientists, including Ed Boyden, for pioneering work that launched the field of optogenetics, a technique that uses light-sensitive channels and pumps to control the activity of neurons in the brain with a flick of a switch. He receives the prize alongside Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Gero Miesenböck, as outlined by The Warren Alpert Foundation in their announcement.

Harnessing light and genetics, the approach illuminates and modulates the activity of neurons, enables study of brain function and behavior, and helps reveal activity patterns that can overcome brain diseases.

Boyden’s work was key to envisioning and developing optogenetics, now a core method in neuroscience. The method allows brain circuits linked to complex behavioral processes, such as those involved in decision-making, feeding, and sleep, to be unraveled in genetic models. It is also helping to elucidate the mechanisms underlying neuropsychiatric disorders, and has the potential to inspire new strategies to overcome brain disorders.

“It is truly an honor to be included among the extremely distinguished list of winners of the Alpert Award,” says Boyden, the Y. Eva Tan Professor in Neurotechnology at the McGovern Institute, MIT. “To me personally, it is exciting to see the relatively new field of neurotechnology recognized. The brain implements our thoughts and feelings. It makes us who we are. This mysteries and challenge requires new technologies to make the brain understandable and repairable. It is a great honor that our technology of optogenetics is being thus recognized.”

While they were students, Boyden, and fellow awardee Karl Deisseroth, brainstormed about how microbial opsins could be used to mediate optical control of neural activity. In mid-2004, the pair collaborated to show that microbial opsins can be used to optically control neural activity. Upon launching his lab at MIT, Boyden’s team developed the first optogenetic silencing tool, the first effective optogenetic silencing in live mammals, noninvasive optogenetic silencing, and single-cell optogenetic control.

“The discoveries made by this year’s four honorees have fundamentally changed the landscape of neuroscience,” said George Q. Daley, dean of Harvard Medical School. “Their work has enabled scientists to see, understand and manipulate neurons, providing the foundation for understanding the ultimate enigma—the human brain.”

Beyond optogenetics, Boyden has pioneered transformative technologies that image, record, and manipulate complex systems, including expansion microscopy, robotic patch clamping, and even shrinking objects to the nanoscale. He was elected this year to the ranks of the National Academy of Sciences, and selected as an HHMI Investigator. Boyden has received numerous awards for this work, including the 2018 Gairdner International Prize and the 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.

The Warren Alpert Foundation, in association with Harvard Medical School, honors scientists whose work has improved the understanding, prevention, treatment or cure of human disease. Prize recipients are selected by the foundation’s scientific advisory board, which is composed of distinguished biomedical scientists and chaired by the dean of Harvard Medical School. The honorees will share a $500,000 prize and will be recognized at a daylong symposium on Oct. 3 at Harvard Medical School.

Ed Boyden holds the titles of Investigator, McGovern Institute; Y. Eva Tan Professor in Neurotechnology at MIT; Leader, Synthetic Neurobiology Group, Media Lab; Associate Professor, Biological Engineering, Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Media Lab; Co-Director, MIT Center for Neurobiological Engineering; Member, MIT Center for Environmental Health Sciences, Computational and Systems Biology Initiative, and Koch Institute.

Mark Harnett receives a 2019 McKnight Scholar Award

Anne Trafton |

McGovern Institute investigator Mark Harnett is one of six young researchers selected to receive a prestigious 2019 McKnight Scholar Award. The award supports his research “studying how dendrites, the antenna-like input structures of neurons, contribute to computation in neural networks.”

Harnett examines the biophysical properties of single neurons, ultimately aiming to understand how these relate to the complex computations that underlie behavior. His lab was the first to examine the biophysical properties of human dendrites. The Harnett lab found that human neurons have distinct properties, including increased dendritic compartmentalization that could allow more complex computations within single neurons. His lab recently discovered that such dendritic computations are not rare, or confined to specific behaviors, but are a widespread and general feature of neuronal activity.

“As a young investigator, it is hard to prioritize so many exciting directions and ideas,” explains Harnett. “I really want to thank the McKnight Foundation, both for the support, but also for the hard work the award committee puts into carefully thinking about and giving feedback on proposals. It means a lot to get this type of endorsement from a seriously committed and distinguished committee, and their support gives even stronger impetus to pursue this research direction.”

The McKnight Foundation has supported neuroscience research since 1977, and provides three prominent awards, with the Scholar award aimed at supporting young scientists, and drawing applications from the strongest young neuroscience faculty across the US. William L. McKnight (1887-1979) was an early leader of the 3M Company and had a personal interest in memory and brain diseases. The McKnight Foundation was established with this focus in mind, and the Scholar Award provides $75,000 per year for three years to support cutting edge neuroscience research.

 

Ed Boyden elected to National Academy of Sciences

by Sabbi Lall |

Ed Boyden has been elected to join the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The organization, established by an act of Congress during the height of the Civil War, was founded to provide independent and objective advice on scientific matters to the nation, and is actively engaged in furthering science in the United States. Each year NAS members recognize fellow scientists through election to the academy based on their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

“I’m very honored and grateful to have been elected to the NAS,” says Boyden. “This is a testament to the work of many graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, research scientists, and staff at MIT who have worked with me over the years, and many collaborators and friends at MIT and around the world who have helped our group on this mission to advance neuroscience through new tools and ways of thinking.”

Boyden’s research creates and applies technologies that aim to expand our understanding of the brain. He notably co-invented optogenetics as an independent side collaboration, conducted in parallel to his PhD studies, a game-changing technology that has revolutionized neurobiology. This technology uses targeted expression of light-sensitive channels and pumps to activate or suppress neuronal activity in vivo using light. Optogenetics quickly swept the field of neurobiology and has been leveraged to understand how specific neurons and brain regions contribute to behavior and to disease.

His research since has an overarching focus on understanding the brain. To this end, he and his lab have the ambitious goal of developing technologies that can map, record, and manipulate the brain. This has led, as selected examples, to the invention of expansion microscopy, a super-resolution imaging technology that can capture neuron’s microstructures and reveal their complex connections, even across large-scale neural circuits; voltage-sensitive fluorescent reporters that allow neural activity to be monitored in vivo; and temporal interference stimulation, a non-invasive brain stimulation technique that allows selective activation of subcortical brain regions.

“We are all incredibly happy to see Ed being elected to the academy,” says Robert Desimone, director of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT. “He has been consistently innovative, inventing new ways of manipulating and observing neurons that are revolutionizing the field of neuroscience.”

This year the NAS, an organization that includes over 500 Nobel Laureates, elected 100 new members and 25 foreign associates. Three MIT professors were elected this year, with Paula T. Hammond (David H. Koch (1962) Professor of Engineering and Department Head, Chemical Engineering) and Aviv Regev (HHMI Investigator and Professor in the Department of Biology) being elected alongside Boyden. Boyden becomes the seventh member of the McGovern Institute faculty to join the National Academy of Sciences.

The formal induction ceremony for new NAS members, during which they sign the ledger whose first signatory is Abraham Lincoln, will be held at the Academy’s annual meeting in Washington D.C. next spring.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guoping Feng elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences

by MIT News |

Four MIT faculty members are among more than 200 leaders from academia, business, public affairs, the humanities, and the arts elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the academy announced today.

One of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies, the academy is also a leading center for independent policy research. Members contribute to academy publications, as well as studies of science and technology policy, energy and global security, social policy and American institutions, the humanities and culture, and education.

Those elected from MIT this year are:

  • Dimitri A. Antoniadis, Ray and Maria Stata Professor of Electrical Engineering;
  • Anantha P. Chandrakasan, dean of the School of Engineering and the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science;
  • Guoping Feng, the James W. (1963) and Patricia T. Poitras Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences; and
  • David R. Karger, professor of electrical engineering.

“We are pleased to recognize the excellence of our new members, celebrate their compelling accomplishments, and invite them to join the academy and contribute to its work,” said David W. Oxtoby, president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. “With the election of these members, the academy upholds the ideals of research and scholarship, creativity and imagination, intellectual exchange and civil discourse, and the relentless pursuit of knowledge in all its forms.”

The new class will be inducted at a ceremony in October in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Since its founding in 1780, the academy has elected leading “thinkers and doers” from each generation, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century, Maria Mitchell and Daniel Webster in the 19th century, and Toni Morrison and Albert Einstein in the 20th century. The current membership includes more than 200 Nobel laureates and 100 Pulitzer Prize winners.