Dr Richard Benton, assistant professor at the Center for Integrative Genomics, University of Lausanne, Switzerland, has won the Eppendorf and Science Prize for Neurobiology 2009 for his research on how insects sense volatile chemical signals.
Dr Benton’s studies have focused on the olfactory receptors of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, and his work reveals unexpected evolutionary parallels between insect chemosensation, immune recognition and synaptic transmission. Dr Benton has shown that insects have invented unusual molecular mechanisms to detect smells, ‘borrowing’ molecules that, in other animals, allow neurons to communicate with each other or act in the immune system to detect bacteria.
Dr Benton writes: “Our discoveries demonstrate that animal nervous systems can evolve very different solutions to the same problem of sensory detection. By targeting these unusual molecular mechanisms with specific chemical inhibitors, it may be possible to control the odour-evoked behaviours of insects that transmit human diseases such as malaria.
The next deadline for applications for the Eppendorf and Science Prize for Neurobiology is 15 June 2010, and more information is available from the Eppendorf. website.
www.eppendorf.com/prize