Perl/UNC Neuroscience Prize Ceremony

We are delighted to announce the Perl/UNC Neuroscience Prize Award presentation and lecture will be held on Wednesday, May 6th at 1pm. The event will take place on the ground floor of MBRB in room 202. This years' prize will be awarded to Michael Greenberg, PhD from Harvard Medical School. 

Greenberg is the Nathan Marsh Pusey Professor of Neurobiology and chair of the department of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Perl prize carries a $10,000 award and is given to recognize a seminal achievement in neuroscience. Past recipients have included four subsequent winners of the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine. Dr. Edward R. Perl is Sarah Graham Kenan professor of cell and molecular physiology at UNC School of Medicine. Perl’s work in pain mechanisms has been highly influential. Thirty years ago, he was the first to prove that a particular class of nerve cells (now called nociceptors) responds exclusively to stimuli that are perceived as painful. These cells now are targets of intensive efforts to find drugs that block their function.

This year’s Perl Prize is being awarded to Greenberg for his discovery of signaling pathways underlying activity-regulated gene transcription in neurons. Changes in patterns of electrical activity in neurons have long been thought to underlie cognitive functions like learning and memory. Greenberg’s discoveries have defined the mechanism by which neural activity regulates neuronal gene expression. Recently several activity-regulated genes have been implicated in rare familial cases of autism.

Michael Greenberg, PhD

Chair of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School

"Signaling Networks that Regulate Synapse Development and Cognitive Function"

Perl Prize poster