Of Note

Marisa Roberto Wins Society for Neuroscience Award

Marisa Roberto, professor at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), has been selected to receive the 2016 Jacob P. Waletzky Award from the Society for Neuroscience (SfN). This award, which includes a $25,000 prize, honors a young scientist whose independent research has led to significant conceptual and empirical contributions to the understanding of drug addiction.

“The Society gladly recognizes Dr. Roberto’s contributions to the field of addiction research,” said SfN President Hollis Cline, who also serves as chair of TSRI’s Department of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience and director of the TSRI Dorris Neuroscience Center. “Not only has she offered seminal contributions to our understanding of the brain mechanisms involved in alcohol dependence, but she also demonstrates a strong drive to lead the next generation of researchers.”

Roberto’s research focuses on how changes in synapses—the connections between neurons—may play a role in alcohol and drug dependence. Her discoveries include the finding that alcohol dependence provokes the brain to release a key signaling molecule in the synapse that can hinder certain cell-to-cell communications. Further research in her laboratory suggested that an anti-seizure drug can mitigate some of those effects, offering a potential treatment for alcohol dependence.

Established in 2003 and supported by the Waletzky Award Prize Fund and the Waletzky family, the prize will be presented this month at Neuroscience 2016, SfN’s annual meeting.

For more information on Roberto’s work, see her laboratory website.

Send comments to: mikaono[at]scripps.edu

Professor Marisa Roberto has won the Society for Neuroscience’s Jacob P. Waletzky Award. (Photo by BioMedical Graphics.)

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Of Note

Marisa Roberto Wins Society for Neuroscience Award