Leslie Vosshall, Paul Greengard win Dart/NYU biotech awards

Two Rockefeller scientists will be honored this week with the 2010 Dart/NYU award, which recognizes the role of pure science in the development of pharmaceuticals and honors scientists whose work has led to major advances to improving patient care. Leslie B. Vosshall, head of the Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Behavior, and Paul Greengard, head of the Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience, received the awards at a symposium on April 5.

Dr. Vosshall, who is Chemers Family Associate Professor, is interested in how olfactory signals in the environment signal food, danger or mating opportunities, and how those signals modulate animal behavior. She works with humans as well as with Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies and mosquitos. She is being recognized with the NYU Biotechnology Alumnae Award for her work in elucidating the mechanism by which insects can detect carbon dioxide. Mosquitoes, and other disease-carrying insects, use their ability to detect carbon dioxide as a way to locate human hosts, and Dr. Vosshall’s work suggests a pair of olfactory receptors that could be targets for novel insect repellents.

Dr. Vosshall received her Ph.D. from Rockefeller in 1993, conducted postdoctoral training at Columbia University, and returned to Rockefeller as assistant professor in 2000. She is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and a recipient of awards from the John Merck, Beckman and McKnight Foundations. She has also received the 2002 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, a 2005 New York City Mayor’s Young Investigator Award for Excellence in Science and Technology, a 2007 Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists and the 2009 Lawrence C. Katz Prize from Duke University.

Dr. Greengard, Vincent Astor Professor, was a recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which he earned for his contributions to understanding how neurotransmitters work. His lab is devoted to discovering the molecular basis of communication between neurons in the mammalian brain, the molecular defects responsible for various neurological and psychiatric disorders and the molecular mechanisms by which neuro- and psychoactive drugs produce their actions. He is being recognized with the Dart award for applied biotechnology. A drug based on his research, which is now in phase II clinical trials, shows promise for the treatment of schizophrenia and sleep disorders associated with neuropsychiatric and neurological diseases.

Dr. Greengard received his Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University. He joined Rockefeller in 1983 and has been director of the Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research since 1995. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Metropolitan Life Foundation Award for Medical Research, the Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievements in Health, the Ralph W. Gerard Prize in Neuroscience from the Society for Neuroscience, The National Academy of Sciences Award in the Neurosciences and the 3M Life Sciences Award of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

The Dart/NYU awards, now in their 10th year, are supported by Dart Neuroscience LLC, a biotech firm specializing in developing therapeutics for brain health and cognitive function, and are administered by the Biotechnology Study Center of New York University School of Medicine. Previous Rockefeller winners of the awards are Barry S. Coller, Physician-in-Chief of The Rockefeller University Hospital, in 2003, and Emil C. Gotschlich, head of the Laboratory of Bacterial Pathogenesis and Immunology, in 2008.