- Email: [email protected]
Jan Schnupp
In Context
Milestones An award of £5·9 million has been given by the Wellcome Trust to support research into ageing in the UK. Divided between researchers at University College London and the European Bioinformatics Institute, the award will fund research into conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease. The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine has been named as the newest Morris K Udall Parkinson’s Disease Center of Excellence and has been awarded US$7·5 million over the next 5 years from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. The funding will support work studying molecular mechanisms underlying cognitive and movement aspects of Parkinson’s disease. The Parkinson’s Institute (CA, USA) has been given US$1 million by the Valley Foundation to fund relocation to a larger facility and support work on their drug discovery and development program for targeting alpha-synuclein. A gift of US$1 million to Weill Cornell Medical College (NY, USA) has created the Leonard and Fleur Harlan Clinical Scholar Award, to support researchers and clinicians in the field of neurological surgery. The first recipient is Roger Härtl, who specialises in spinal surgery and brain trauma. Shigetada Nakanishi of the Osaka Bioscience Institute (Japan) has received the 2007 Gruber Neuroscience Prize and US$500 000 for his contributions over the past 40 years to the understanding of the molecular mechanisms and pathways of the brain. A Competitive Advantage Award of US$120 000 from the Science Foundation of Arizona has been given to Stephen Macknik at Barrow Neurological Institute (AZ, USA). The grant will support work into flicker fusion for patients with epilepsy and other neurological conditions, which investigates making flickering images, such as television, seem stable to the brain. A Robert Wood Johnson Investigator Award has been given to Joseph Fins of Weill Cornell Medical College. The 3 year award will fund research into improving care for patients with severe brain injury and their families. Donald Phillips and Henry Wu are the recipients of the Pauletta and Denzel Washington Family Scholar in Neuroscience awards for 2007, given by Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre (Los Angeles, CA, USA). The Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease has awarded the 2007 Alzheimer Award to Jing Zhang, of the University of Washington School of Medicine (WA, USA) for his work using proteomics in neurodegenerative disorders. Send announcements to: [email protected]
http://neurology.thelancet.com Vol 6 August 2007
Lifeline Jan Schnupp was born in Munich and came to the UK in 1986 to study genetics at University College London. He was awarded his DPhil from Oxford in 1996, where he now co-directs the Auditory Neuroscience research group with Andrew King. He also holds a Tutorial Fellowship in Physiology and Medicine at St Peter’s College, Oxford. Jan was recently the runner-up in the NESTA Famelab competition to promote enthusiasm for science in the general public. What do you think is the most over-hyped field of science or medicine at the moment? Genetics has been over-hyped for decades. It always struck me as naive to think that the majority of important biomedical problems could be understood simply by finding the genes for them.
For more on NESTA Famelab see http://www.famelab.org/
And the most neglected? Probably statistics. I think a truly staggering amount of human foolhardiness results from our often poor grasp of randomness, chance, good and bad luck, hazard, and risk. What is your favourite film and why? Blade Runner. Some people think of it as an action movie, but if you watch it carefully you will notice that it is also a clever thought experiment, which explores questions at the interface between the philosophy of mind, artificial intelligence, and ethics. How would you improve the public’s understanding of research? I would urge and encourage scientists to spend more time talking to the public, and when they do they should not take themselves too seriously and should emphasise the entertaining and creative side of science. If the public find scientists accessible and science enjoyable, then understanding will follow by itself. If you knew you had a week to live, how would you live those days? Learn how to hang glide on Monday; cruise the Nile on Tuesday; scuba dive in the Maldives on Wednesday; visit Angkor Wat on Thursday; ski the Rocky Mountains on Friday; hike in the Himalayas on Saturday; and on Sunday, send off that nearly finished manuscript that I’ve been sitting on for months. Which would you choose, money or power? Power comes in a lot of different guises; the only type of power that I enjoy is that which stems from having a flush and generous budget. So, could I please have the money? Thanks! What keeps you awake at night? Nothing. I keep some advanced mathematics books by my bed. I leaf through them for 5 minutes and then my lids fall shut and I sleep like a baby. Works every time.
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Milestones An award of £5·9 million has been given by the Wellcome Trust to support research into ageing in the UK. Divided between researchers at University College London and the European Bioinformatics Institute, the award will fund research into conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease. The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine has been named as the newest Morris K Udall Parkinson’s Disease Center of Excellence and has been awarded US$7·5 million over the next 5 years from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. The funding will support work studying molecular mechanisms underlying cognitive and movement aspects of Parkinson’s disease. The Parkinson’s Institute (CA, USA) has been given US$1 million by the Valley Foundation to fund relocation to a larger facility and support work on their drug discovery and development program for targeting alpha-synuclein. A gift of US$1 million to Weill Cornell Medical College (NY, USA) has created the Leonard and Fleur Harlan Clinical Scholar Award, to support researchers and clinicians in the field of neurological surgery. The first recipient is Roger Härtl, who specialises in spinal surgery and brain trauma. Shigetada Nakanishi of the Osaka Bioscience Institute (Japan) has received the 2007 Gruber Neuroscience Prize and US$500 000 for his contributions over the past 40 years to the understanding of the molecular mechanisms and pathways of the brain. A Competitive Advantage Award of US$120 000 from the Science Foundation of Arizona has been given to Stephen Macknik at Barrow Neurological Institute (AZ, USA). The grant will support work into flicker fusion for patients with epilepsy and other neurological conditions, which investigates making flickering images, such as television, seem stable to the brain. A Robert Wood Johnson Investigator Award has been given to Joseph Fins of Weill Cornell Medical College. The 3 year award will fund research into improving care for patients with severe brain injury and their families. Donald Phillips and Henry Wu are the recipients of the Pauletta and Denzel Washington Family Scholar in Neuroscience awards for 2007, given by Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre (Los Angeles, CA, USA). The Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease has awarded the 2007 Alzheimer Award to Jing Zhang, of the University of Washington School of Medicine (WA, USA) for his work using proteomics in neurodegenerative disorders. Send announcements to: [email protected]
http://neurology.thelancet.com Vol 6 August 2007
Lifeline Jan Schnupp was born in Munich and came to the UK in 1986 to study genetics at University College London. He was awarded his DPhil from Oxford in 1996, where he now co-directs the Auditory Neuroscience research group with Andrew King. He also holds a Tutorial Fellowship in Physiology and Medicine at St Peter’s College, Oxford. Jan was recently the runner-up in the NESTA Famelab competition to promote enthusiasm for science in the general public. What do you think is the most over-hyped field of science or medicine at the moment? Genetics has been over-hyped for decades. It always struck me as naive to think that the majority of important biomedical problems could be understood simply by finding the genes for them.
For more on NESTA Famelab see http://www.famelab.org/
And the most neglected? Probably statistics. I think a truly staggering amount of human foolhardiness results from our often poor grasp of randomness, chance, good and bad luck, hazard, and risk. What is your favourite film and why? Blade Runner. Some people think of it as an action movie, but if you watch it carefully you will notice that it is also a clever thought experiment, which explores questions at the interface between the philosophy of mind, artificial intelligence, and ethics. How would you improve the public’s understanding of research? I would urge and encourage scientists to spend more time talking to the public, and when they do they should not take themselves too seriously and should emphasise the entertaining and creative side of science. If the public find scientists accessible and science enjoyable, then understanding will follow by itself. If you knew you had a week to live, how would you live those days? Learn how to hang glide on Monday; cruise the Nile on Tuesday; scuba dive in the Maldives on Wednesday; visit Angkor Wat on Thursday; ski the Rocky Mountains on Friday; hike in the Himalayas on Saturday; and on Sunday, send off that nearly finished manuscript that I’ve been sitting on for months. Which would you choose, money or power? Power comes in a lot of different guises; the only type of power that I enjoy is that which stems from having a flush and generous budget. So, could I please have the money? Thanks! What keeps you awake at night? Nothing. I keep some advanced mathematics books by my bed. I leaf through them for 5 minutes and then my lids fall shut and I sleep like a baby. Works every time.
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