Perl / UNC Neuroscience Prize

We are delighted to announce the 11th Perl/UNC Neuroscience Prize will be awarded jointly to Catherine Dulac, PhD from Harvard (on left) and Cori Bargmann, PhD from Rockefeller (on right). The Perl Prize is being awarded to Drs. Dulac and Bargmann for the “Discovery of chemosensory circuits that regulate social behaviors.”  Dr. Dulac will receive her portion of the award on Thursday, April 21st at 11:45am. Dr. Bargmann will receive her portion as part of the 12th Annual UNC Neuroscience Symposium on October 13th.

Dr. Dulac is the Chair and Higgins Professor in Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University and is also an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Dr. Bargmann is the Torsten N. Wiesel Professor in the Laboratory of Neural Circuits and Behavior at Rockefeller University.  She is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.

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.