2014 Waterman Award

2014年沃特曼奖

• 批准号: 1455917
• 负责人: Feng Zhang
• 金额: $ 100万
• 依托单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-08-15 至 2015-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1455917&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: 2014; Waterman; Award

The National Science Foundation (NSF) named Feng Zhang the 2014 recipient of its Alan T. Waterman Award. This award is NSF's highest honor that annually recognizes an outstanding researcher under the age of 35 and funds his or her research in any field of science or engineering. Zhang's research focuses on understanding how the brain works.Zhang seeks to understand the molecular machinery of brain cells through the development and application of innovative technologies. He created and is continuing to perfect tools that afford researchers precise control over biological activities occurring inside the cell. With these tools, researchers can deepen their understanding of how the genome works, and how it influences the development and function of the brain. Zhang also examines failures within the systems that cause disease.Two different lines of fundamental research and technology development are helping him do that: optogenetics and genome engineering. Along with Edward Boyden and Karl Deisseroth at Stanford University, he invented a set of technologies for dissecting the functional organization of brain circuits, The successful development of optogenetics has enabled the systematic investigation of neural circuit function in vivo with unprecedented precision of control. Zhang used that approach to lead landmark studies that illuminated the neural codes for arousal, reward and circuit oscillation. He also developed light-inducible transcription effectors that enabled optogenetic control of transcription and epigenetic process in the brain and other tissues.Zhang also developed the CRISPR genome editing system--that is, to identify and cut a short DNA sequence underlying a disorder so that it may be deleted or substituted out for other genetic material Although Zhang's main area of focus is the brain, the potential applications of CRISPR technology extend well beyond neuroscience.He is one of 11 core faculty members at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; an investigator at MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research; and the W. M. Keck Career Development Professor with a joint appointment in MIT's Departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Biological Engineering.Zhang is widely recognized for his pioneering work in optogenetics and genome editing. He shared the Perl/UNC Neuroscience Prize with Karl Deisseroth and Edward Boyden in 2012. In 2013, MIT Technology Review recognized him as a "pioneer" and one of its 35 Innovators Under 35; Popular Science magazine placed Zhang on its Brilliant 10, an annual list of the most promising scientific innovators. Nature also named him as one of the "ten people who mattered" in 2013 for his work on developing the CRISPR system for genome editing in mammalian cells.

国家科学基金会（NSF）名为Feng Zhang的2014年Alan T. Waterman奖获得者。该奖项是NSF的最高荣誉，每年都会认可35岁以下的杰出研究人员，并在任何科学或工程领域为他或她的研究提供资金。张的研究重点是理解大脑的工作方式。他创建并正在继续使用完美的工具，使研究人员精确控制了对细胞内部的生物活动的控制。借助这些工具，研究人员可以加深他们对基因组的工作原理以及它如何影响大脑的发展和功能的理解。张还检查了引起疾病的系统中的故障。基本研究和技术开发的两条线条有助于他做到这一点：光遗传学和基因组工程。他与斯坦福大学的爱德华·博伊登（Edward Boyden）和卡尔·德塞罗斯（Karl Deisseroth）一起发明了一套用于剖析脑电路功能组织的技术，因此，光遗传学的成功开发使在体内神经电路功能的系统调查具有前所未有的控制精度。张利用这种方法领导具有里程碑意义的研究，以阐明神经代码的唤醒，奖励和电路振荡。他还开发了光诱导的转录效应子，从而能够对大脑和其他组织中的转录和表观遗传过程的光遗传控制。Zhang还开发了CRISPR基因组编辑系统，也就是说，可以识别和切割出疾病的短DNA序列并切割出疾病的短DNA序列，以便将其用于其他遗传材料，尽管Zhang远远超出了遗传学的范围。是麻省理工学院和哈佛大学广泛研究所的11个核心教师之一；麻省理工学院McGovern脑研究所的研究人员； W. M. Keck职业发展教授在麻省理工学院的大脑和认知科学和生物工程部门共同任命。Zhang因其在光遗传学和基因组编辑方面的开创性工作而广受认可。他于2012年与Karl Deisseroth和Edward Boyden分享了Perl/UNC神经科学奖。2013年，MIT Technology Review在2013年将他视为“先驱”，是其35岁以下的35名创新者之一；流行的科学杂志将张列入其出色的10，这是最有前途的科学创新者的年度清单。大自然在2013年也将他命名为“至关重要的十个人”之一，因为他在哺乳动物细胞中开发了用于基因组编辑的CRISPR系统的工作。