Scientist Wins Eppendorf & Science Prize 2019

The Amer­i­can sci­en­tist Lau­ren Orefice, Ph.D., Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor at Mass­a­chu­setts Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and Har­vard Med­ical School has won the 2019 Eppen­dorf & Sci­ence Prize for Neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy for her work on the caus­es and poten­tial ther­a­pies for autism spec­trum dis­or­ders (ASD). Dr. Orefice found that periph­er­al somatosen­so­ry neu­rons – neu­rons out­side the brain that con­trol the sense of touch – are key areas where autism-asso­ci­at­ed gene muta­tions have a crit­i­cal impact. She showed how abnor­mal func­tion of periph­er­al somatosen­so­ry neu­rons caus­es touch over-reac­tiv­i­ty and how this over-reac­tiv­i­ty dur­ing devel­op­ment con­tributes to altered brain func­tion and some autism-relat­ed behav­iors in mice. Dr. Orefice’s work changes how we think about the caus­es of ASD, pro­vid­ing a sur­pris­ing revi­sion of wide­ly-held views that link ASD exclu­sive­ly to brain func­tion. She high­lights periph­er­al somatosen­so­ry neu­rons as a pos­si­ble nov­el ther­a­peu­tic tar­get for improv­ing some ASD-relat­ed symptoms.

The annu­al US$25,000 Eppen­dorf & Sci­ence Prize for Neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy hon­ors sci­en­tists, like Dr. Orefice, for their ground-break­ing research. Lau­ren Orefice is the 18^th recip­i­ent of this inter­na­tion­al prize which is award­ed joint­ly by Eppen­dorf and the jour­nal Sci­ence. Researchers who are 35 years of age or younger and have made out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to neu­ro­bi­o­log­i­cal research based on meth­ods of mol­e­c­u­lar and cell biol­o­gy are invit­ed to apply. The next dead­line for appli­ca­tions is June 15, 2020.