Brain research focused company One Mind has picked the five winners of its 2019 One Mind Rising Star Awards, which identifies and funds research on the causes of and cures for brain disorders by supporting promising emerging leaders in the field of neuropsychiatry. This year, each awardee will receive $250,000 from One Mind over a three-year period to fund research for their studies, catalyzing innovations not yet supported by the federal government while encouraging collaboration and data sharing.
The winners of this year’s 2019 One Mind Rising Star Awards are:
Laura Lewis, PhD,
winner of the 2019 One Mind – Bettina Bryant Rising Star Depression Research Award in Honor of Dr Fridolin Sulser. Lewis is assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Boston University. Her study, “Identifying intersecting network dynamics underlying sleep and mood in depression” focuses on the unexpected observation that sleep deprivation rapidly improves symptoms in roughly 50% of individuals with depression.
Stephan Lammel, PhD, winner of the 2019 One Mind – Janssen Rising Star Translational Research Award in Honor of the Late Jeffrey S. Nye, MD, PhD. Lammel is assistant professor of neurobiology at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on depression as well as addiction, including substance use disorder and severe eating disorders.
Jennifer M. Coughlin, MD, winner of the 2019 One Mind – Gifford Foundation Rising Star Schizophrenia Research Award. Coughlin is associate professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. Her study “Transdiagnostic imaging of the α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor in recent-onset psychosis” builds upon post-mortem studies that demonstrated alterations in binding to the receptor in selected regions of the brain.
Denise Cai, PhD, winner of the 2019 One Mind – Otsuka Rising Star Research Award. Cai is assistant professor of neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Her research, entitled “Temporal memory-linking: a circuit mechanism of PTSD” investigates how memories of traumatic events can be linked across time and trigger a fearful response in a safe environment.
Carl Sellgren Majkowitz, MD, PhD, winner of the 2019 One Mind – Kaiser Permanente Rising Star Research Award. Sellgren Majkowitz is assistant professor at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. His study, entitled “Targeting the rewiring of the connectome in adolescence to prevent schizophrenia” addresses key gaps in knowledge around the hypothesis that excessive synaptic pruning during brain development contributes to the observed reduction in synapse density in schizophrenia.
The 2019 Rising Star Award winners were selected with the assistance and recommendations of the One Mind Scientific Advisory Board, which includes 9 brain scientists.
The 2019 One Mind Rising Star Awards are sponsored by Janssen Research & Development, LLC, Otsuka Pharmaceutical, Kaiser Permanente, The Gifford Foundation and Bettina Bryant.
