The Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize

The Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize is to honor a scientific investigator or group of investigators whose contributions to knowledge in fields of biology or biochemistry are deemed worthy of special recognition.

2026 Horwitz Prize Recipients

Columbia University announces Adrian Bird and Huda Zoghbi as the 2026 recipients of the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize. For more information, please read the announcement from the CUIMC Newsroom. 

Adrian Bird, PhD

Buchanan Chair of Genetics
University of Edinburgh

Adrian Bird, PhD, holds the Buchanan Chair of Genetics at the University of Edinburgh. He obtained his PhD in Edinburgh and, following postdoctoral experience at the Universities of Yale and Zurich, he joined the Medical Research Council’s Mammalian Genome Unit in Edinburgh. In 1987 he moved to Vienna to become a Senior Scientist at the Institute for Molecular Pathology. Returning to Edinburgh in 1990, he became founding Director of the Centre for Cell Biology (1999 to 2011), a governor of the Wellcome Trust and subsequently a trustee of Cancer Research UK. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences. Awards include the Louis Jeantet, Gairdner, Shaw and the Brain Prizes and he was knighted in 2014.

Huda Zoghbi, MD

Distinguished Service Professor 
Baylor College of Medicine

Investigator 
Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Huda Zoghbi, MD, is a Distinguished Service Professor at Baylor College of Medicine, Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and founding Director of the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital. Zoghbi graduated from the American University of Beirut, received her medical degree from Meharry Medical College, and completed her residency and postdoctoral research training at Baylor College of Medicine. She has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Awards include Gairdner, Shaw, Kavli, Breakthrough and the Brain Prizes.