On December 1, the third Postdoc Brain Award ceremony took place. This year, two Brain Awards were awarded to scientists of the institute. One for scientific excellence and one for collaboration between different research groups.
BRAIN AWARD FOR SCIENTIFIC EXCELLENCE
The Postdoc Brain Award for scientific excellence was awarded to Arne Battefeld from the Kole group. He received the award for his paper ‘Myelinating satellite oligodendrocytes are integrated in a glial syncytium constraining neuronal high-frequency activity’ which was published in Nature Communications. For the first time, they showed the communication between neurons and satellite oligodendrocytes.
One of the judges was “impressed by the thoroughness and technical aptitude of the study by Battefeld and colleagues, and by the fact that it included electrophysiology, fine-scaled immunohistochemistry, and computational modelling.” The judges indicate that Arne’s entry had the highest level of scientific excellence, and is likely to have the most scientific impact.
BRAIN AWARD FOR COLLABORATIVE EXCELLENCE
Postdocs Laura Smit-Rigter and Rajeev Rajendran won this years’ Postdoc Brain Award for Collaborative Excellence. They crossed barriers of a single lab and made scientific advances by synergizing the insights from multiple groups, including the Levelt, Lohmann and Heimel groups. Smit-Rigter and Rajendran offer an interesting view on mitochondrial dynamics in visual cortex.
Their paper, Mitochondrial Dynamics in Visual Cortex Are Limited In Vivo and Not Affected by Axonal Structural Plasticity, was published in Current Biology. One of the judges said that the paper “clearly shows how the collaboration between the labs brought about a study that could not have been achieved otherwise.”
BRAIN AWARDS
The idea behind our NIN Brain Awards for Postdocs, is to put the limelight on our Postdocs, and to reward their hard work. The winners all received a sculpture and a cash award.