ol in neuroscience research, allowing scientists to probe and understand a range of brain functions and dysfunctions including those that underlie sensory processing, motor control, learning, memory, emotion and social behaviors.
From the Winners
"It is truly an honor to be included among the extremely distinguished list of winners of the Alpert Award. 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. Brain disorders affect more than a billion people around the world. These mysteries and challenges require new technologies to make the brain understandable and repairable. It is a great honor that our technology of optogenetics is being thus recognized."
"This award is an honor and a testament to the talents and creative energy of the students, postdoctoral fellows, and other trainees that I have worked with over the years at Stanford."
"I feel deeply honored to receive this prestigious award in recognition of the research I conducted with my extraordinary coworkers over many years. I hope the award will promote fundamental basic research for future applications that we have not the slightest idea about quite yet..."
"I am delighted to be in such good company, and I'm not talking just about my co-laureates. Many of my scientific heroes are among the previous recipients of the Warren Alpert Prize."
Last year's award went to five scientists for transformative discoveries in the fields of genetics, physiology, pulmonology and pharmacology that led to the development of life-altering precision-targeted treatments for the devastating multiorgan disease cystic fibrosis. They were Francis Collins, Paul Negulescu, Bonnie Ramsey, Lap-Chee Tsui, Michael Welsh.
Other past recipients of the Warren Alpert award include:
James Allison, Lieping Chen, Gordon Freeman, Tasuku Honjo and Arlene Sharpe for discoveries into cancer's ability to evade immune surveillance that led to the development of a class of cancer immunotherapies.
Rodolphe Barrangou, Emmanuelle Charpentier, Jennifer Doudna, Philippe Horvath and Virginijus Siksnys for CRISPR-related discoveries.
Tu Youyou, who went on to receive the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with two others, and Ruth and Victor for their pioneering discoveries in the chemistry and parasitology of malaria and the translation of that work into the development of drug therapies and an antimalarial vaccine.
Oleh Hornykiewicz, Roger Nicol, and Solomon Snyder for research into neurotransmission and neurodegeneration.
Alain Carpentier for innovations in bioengineering.
Harald zur Hausen and Lutz Gissmann for work on the human papillomavirus (HPV) and its role in cervical cancer. Zur Hausen and others were honored with the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2008.
The Warren Alpert Foundation
Each year the Warren Alpert Foundation receives between 30 and 50 nominations from scientific leaders worldwide. 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.
Warren Alpert (1920-2007), a native of Chelsea, Mass., established the prize in 1987 after reading about the development of a vaccine for hepatitis B. The inaugural recipient of the award was Kenneth Murray of the University of Edinburgh, who designed the hepatitis B vaccine. To award subsequent prizes, Alpert asked Daniel Tosteson (1925-2009), then dean of Harvard Medical School, to convene a panel of experts to identify scientists from around the world whose research had a direct impact on the treatment of disease.
About Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School has more than 11,000 faculty working in the 11 basic and social science departments comprising the Blavatnik Institute and at the 15 Harvard-affiliated teaching hospitals and research institutes: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston Children's Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Cambridge Health Alliance, Dana-Farber Cancer