Two School of Medicine Neuroscientists Win Sloan Fellowships

Jeremy Dasen, assistant professor of physiology and neuroscience and a member of the Smilow Neuroscience Program, and Greg Suh, assistant professor of cell biology, were recently awarded research fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The two-year fellowships, which include an award of $50,000, recognize exceptional young researchers early in their careers.

      Dasen, a developmental neurobiologist, studies the genetic basis of neuronal circuits in the central nervous system, using the spinal cord as a model system. He is particularly interested in a large family of genes named Hox — shorthand for a snippet of DNA called homeobox — that determine the connections that will be formed between motor neurons in the spinal cord and their muscle targets in the limbs, among other functions.

      Suh, a neurobiologist, studies how fruit flies recognize cues, such as odors emanating from a morsel of food or from stressed flies, and then respond with appropriate behaviors. Which neurons in the brain are activated in response to such cues? Are the behavioral responses hardwired? To answer these questions, Suh is using sophisticated genetic and imaging tools that allow him to identify individual neurons in a fruit fly, which has one million neurons.

      This year 118 scientists, mathematicians, and economists were given fellowships. Since 1955, the first year the awards were given, 35 recipients have gone on to win Nobel Prizes.