SfN Receives $650,000 from the Eli Lilly and Company Foundation for Award Honoring Axelrod
For immediate release.
NEWS RELEASE NR-36-06 (11/21/06). For more information, please contact Joe Carey at (202) 962-4000 or joe@sfn.org.
SFN RECEIVES $650,000 FROM THE ELI LILLY AND COMPANY FOUNDATION FOR AWARD HONORING AXELROD
WASHINGTON, DC, November 21, 2006 - The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) has received a $650,000 award from the Eli Lilly and Company Foundation to endow a prize in honor of Julius Axelrod, an American pharmacologist and neuroscientist. The award will establish an annual $25,000 award, the Julius Axelrod Prize, for distinguished achievements in neuropharmacology or a related field, and exemplary efforts in mentoring young scientists. The first Axelrod Prize will be awarded in 2007.
"The prize is intended to recognize scientists who exemplify Julie Axelrod as a scientist and as a mentor," said Steven Paul, Lilly's executive vice president of science and technology.
"We are very grateful to Lilly for their generous gift, which acknowledges excellence in pharmacology and in helping young scientists," said SfN President David Van Essen. "This is the first award that will allow the Society to support an endowed prize in perpetuity."
The Axelrod Prize will be formally presented each year by the SfN president at the beginning of one of the featured lectures at the Society's annual meeting. The prize winner will be invited to give a lecture at an annual symposium on the Friday preceding the annual meeting. Three institutes of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) -- the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), National Institute on Drug Abuse, and National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke -- plan to sponsor the Axelrod Prize symposium beginning in 2007.
Axelrod, a long-time SfN member, shared the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the actions of neurotransmitters in regulating the metabolism of the nervous system. In that year, Axelrod, along with Sir Bernard Katz of University College London and Ulf von Euler of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, won the Nobel for "discoveries concerning the humoral transmitters in the nerve terminals and the mechanism for their storage, release, and inactivation." Among the drug discoveries their work helped spur were the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, such as Prozac.
Axelrod also played a key role in the discovery of the pain-relieving properties of acetaminophen, better known by its brand name, Tylenol. He is probably best known for his work on brain chemistry in the early 1960s that led to current treatments for depression and anxiety disorders. In 1984, at the age of 72, Axelrod formally retired from NIMH. In 1996, he was named Scientist Emeritus of the NIH. Throughout his career, he served as a mentor to dozens of talented young scientists, many of whom have gone on to distinguished careers in neuroscience and pharmacology. He died in 2004 at age 92.
The Society for Neuroscience is an organization of more than 36,500 basic scientists and clinicians who study the brain and nervous system. For more information on the Axelrod Prize please contact Joe Carey at joe@sfn.org or 202-962-4000.
