Pioneer in Neural Development Carla Shatz, PhD, Wins Prestigious Prize
NEW YORK, NY (February 19, 2013) — Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and Weill Cornell Medical College have announced that the Mortimer D. Sackler, M.D. Prize for Distinguished Achievement in Developmental Psychobiology has been awarded to Carla Shatz, PhD, the Sapp Family Provostial Professor in Neurobiology at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. Dr. Shatz’s work has advanced understanding of fundamental principles of early brain development with the discovery that neuronal activity prior to birth is essential for later formation and refinement of connections in the visual system. Her work has important implications for understanding how the visual system refines its connections—work that has contributed to our understanding of critical periods of brain wiring in developmental disorders such as autism and schizophrenia.
Dr. Shatz’s selection as this year’s Sackler Prize recipient is in recognition not only of her pioneering achievements in the understanding of early brain development, but also of her leadership in the field of neuroscience and her track record of mentorship.
“Dr. Shatz has provided some of our most profound insights into the way the brain matures during early life, including the importance of neural activity in shaping development. Her work provides a blueprint for understanding how brain function is molded at very young ages. She is a wonderful pick for the prize that commemorates Dr. Mortimer D. Sackler’s legacy and his passion for understanding the biological basis of neuropsychiatric disorders,” said Jay Gingrich, MD, PhD, director of the Columbia Sackler Institute and the Sackler Institute Professor of Developmental Psychobiology at Columbia University Medical Center and the New York State Psychiatric Institute.
“I am thrilled about this year’s recipient of the prize. Not only has Dr. Shatz provided new insights into early brain development that have important implications for neurodevelopmental disorders, she has been a world-class leader in integrating a multitude of disciplines necessary for understanding the complexities of the human brain. This interdisciplinary approach to bridging disparate scientific views—with unusual harmony—is a philosophy shared across the Sackler Institutes, as part of Dr. Sackler‘s vision,” said B.J. Casey, PhD, director of the Sackler Institute and the Sackler Professor of Developmental Psychobiology at Weill Cornell Medical College.
The Sackler Prize is selected by a committee of 15, including faculty from each of the six Sackler Institutes, programs, and centers: Weill Cornell Medical College; Columbia University Medical Center; Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow; University of Sussex; King’s College London; and McGill University. Dr. Shatz will hold grand rounds at Columbia and Weill Cornell at the end of February and the beginning of March.
Dr. Shatz said, “I am thrilled and honored to receive this wonderful recognition from the Sackler Institutes in the name of this distinguished family. Understanding fundamental mechanisms of brain development and the dynamic interplay between nature and nurture are essential for treating, and someday curing, neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and schizophrenia."
Asked about the most unexpected insight from her own work, she said, "Discovering that nerve cells in the baby's brain spontaneously send signals from the eye to the brain’s visual centers long before vision. It is as if the brain is running test patterns and rehearsing for vision long before birth, and we know that this rehearsal is a key part of brain-circuit tuning during development."
Dr. Shatz is director of Bio-X, Stanford University’s pioneering interdisciplinary biosciences program that brings together faculty from across the entire university—clinicians, biologists, engineers, physicists, and computer scientists—to unlock the secrets of the human body in health and disease.
In 1976, Dr. Shatz was the first woman to earn a PhD in neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, where she studied with Nobel laureates David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel. In 1978, she joined the faculty as assistant professor of neurobiology at Stanford, where she was the first woman to receive tenure in the basic sciences.
Dr. Shatz is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Institute of Medicine and was recently elected as a Foreign Member of the Royal Society of London. She has been a Howard Hughes investigator and received numerous awards, including the Gill Prize in Neuroscience, the Society for Neuroscience’s Salpeter Lifetime achievement award, and the Ralph Gerard Prize in Neuroscience.
The Mortimer D. Sackler, M.D. Prize for Distinguished Achievement in Developmental Psychobiology
The Mortimer D. Sackler, M.D. Prize for Distinguished Achievement in Developmental Psychobiology recognizes researchers who have advanced our understanding of the developmental processes of mind, brain, and behavior that contribute to normal development and of the origins of mental illness. The prize aims to foster international cooperation among scientists and promote public understanding of their work. The prize is presented jointly every two years by the Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology at Weill Cornell Medical College. The first prize was awarded in 2008 to Dr. Avshalom Caspi of King’s College, London, and Duke University. Dr. Fernando Nottebohm of the Rockefeller University received the prize in 2010.
The prize honors one of the most creative scientists in the field of developmental psychobiology, the late Mortimer D. Sackler, M.D., who began his career as a psychiatrist and pioneer researcher in biological psychiatry in the late 1940s at the New York State Department of Mental Health. During this early period, he published more than 40 papers in peer-reviewed journals, which highlighted the role of early childhood development in later psychiatric illness. In the early 1950s, Dr. Sackler, with his brothers, founded the pharmaceutical company known today as Purdue Pharma. The original prize was a gift in honor of Dr. Sackler’s 90th birthday from his seven children, and the prize was endowed in 2009 by a gift from The Mortimer D. Sackler Foundation, Inc.
The Sackler Institutes at Weill Cornell Medical College and Columbia University Medical Center
The Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology was endowed and established at Columbia University Medical Center in 2000 by the Sackler Foundation–La Fondation Sackler and is dedicated to research into the complex processes underlying normal development as well as the origins of psychiatric illness, working at levels ranging from the molecular to the psychological.
The Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology at Weill Cornell Medical College, established and endowed in 1996 by the Sackler Foundation–La Fondation Sackler and Mortimer D. Sackler, M.D., family members and related entities, is focused on research and training using state-of-the-art brain-imaging techniques, human and mouse genetics, and novel behavioral methods to study typical and atypical human brain development.
Columbia University Medical Center provides international leadership in basic, pre-clinical, and clinical research; medical and health sciences education; and patient care. The medical center trains future leaders and includes the dedicated work of many physicians, scientists, public health professionals, dentists, and nurses at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Mailman School of Public Health, the College of Dental Medicine, the School of Nursing, the biomedical departments of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and allied research centers and institutions. Established in 1767, Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons was the first institution in the country to grant the MD degree and is among the most selective medical schools in the country. Columbia University Medical Center is home to the largest medical research enterprise in New York City and State and one of the largest in the United States. Its physicians treat patients at multiple locations throughout the tri-state area, including the NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia campus in Washington Heights, the new ColumbiaDoctors Midtown location at 51 W. 51st St. in Manhattan, and the new ColumbiaDoctors Riverdale practice. For more information, visit www.cumc.columbia.edu or columbiadoctors.org.
Weill Cornell Medical College, Cornell University’s medical school located in New York City, is committed to excellence in research, teaching, patient care, and the advancement of the art and science of medicine, locally, nationally, and globally. Physicians and scientists of Weill Cornell Medical College are engaged in cutting-edge research from bench to bedside, aimed at unlocking mysteries of the human body in health and sickness and toward developing new treatments and prevention strategies. In its commitment to global health and education, Weill Cornell has a strong presence in places such as Qatar, Tanzania, Haiti, Brazil, Austria, and Turkey. Through the historic Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, the Medical College is the first in the U.S. to offer its MD degree overseas. Weill Cornell is the birthplace of many medical advances — including the development of the Pap test for cervical cancer, the synthesis of penicillin, the first successful embryo-biopsy pregnancy and birth in the U.S., the first clinical trial of gene therapy for Parkinson’s disease, and most recently, the world’s first successful use of deep-brain stimulation to treat a minimally conscious brain-injured patient. Weill Cornell Medical College is affiliated with NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, where its faculty provides comprehensive patient care at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. The Medical College is also affiliated with the Methodist Hospital in Houston, making Weill Cornell one of only two medical colleges in the country affiliated with two U.S.News & World Report Honor Roll hospitals. For more information, visit weill.cornell.edu.
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