Hebrew University’s Professor Haim Sompolinksy and Columbia University Prof. Larry Abbott Win First New $100,000 Mathematical Neuroscience Prize
Professor Haim Sompolinsky of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem has been awarded the 1st Annual Mathematical Neuroscience Prize by Israel Brain Technologies (IBT), a non-profit organization committed to advancing Israel’s neurotechnology industry and establishing the country as a global hub of brain technology innovation.
Professor Sompolinsky, who pioneered the field of computational neuroscience, is the William N. Skirball Professor of Neuroscience at The Hebrew University’s Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences (ELSC).
ELSC is one of the most ambitious neuroscience centers in the world, providing a multi-disciplinary environment where theorists, computer scientists, cognitive psychologists and biologists collaborate to revolutionize brain science.
IBT’s $100,000 Mathematical Neuroscience Prize, awarded at the 1st annual BrainTech Israel 2013 Conference in Tel Aviv, honors researchers worldwide who have significantly advanced our understanding of the neural mechanisms of perception, behavior and thought through the application of mathematical analysis and theoretical modeling.
Professor Sompolinsky specializes in building mathematical models that describe the collective behavior and the informational processing in neural circuits in the brain. The principles that emerge from Professor Sompolinsky’s work contribute to our understanding of the system-wide failures that take place in brain diseases, from epilepsy to psychiatric disorders.
According to Sompolinsky, “Computational neuroscience is a vibrant and ambitious field that uses mathematical theories and models to cope with the most daunting challenges — from answering fundamental questions about the brain and its relation to the mind to answering questions posed by the quest to heal the brain’s debilitating diseases.”
Also winning a $100,000 Mathematical Neuroscience Prize was Professor Larry Abbott, Bloor Professor of Theoretical Neuroscience at Columbia University, who developed models ranging from the level of neurons and synapses to large-scale networks, and showed how plasticity mechanisms that change the properties of neural circuits can maintain their proper operation and allow them to change during the learning process.
Nobel Laureate Professor Bert Sakmann, inaugural Scientific Director of the Max Planck Florida Institute, presented the awards at the conference. “This prize honors the founders of mathematical neuroscience, and is a milestone because it gives due recognition to this field,” said Sakmann.
“This prize recognizes leaders in the important field of mathematical neuroscience, whose advances support our ultimate quest to find new solutions for the betterment of all humankind,” said Miri Polachek, Executive Director of IBT.
In the future, the Prize Selection Committee will consist of previous prize winners, including Sompolinsky and Abbott.
IBT’s BrainTech Israel 2013 Conference is exploring developments in brain technology and their commercialization through a “meeting of the minds” among government leaders, entrepreneurs, researchers, leading companies and investors from Israel and around the world.
Inspired by the vision of Israeli President Shimon Peres and building on Israel’s position as a global technology powerhouse, IBT aims to make Israel both the “Startup Nation” and the “Brain Nation.” IBT is also focused on increasing collaboration between the Israeli neurotechnology ecosystem and its counterparts around the world. IBT is led by a team of technology entrepreneurs and life science professionals and is advised by a panel of renowned academic, industry and public sector representatives including two Nobel Prize Laureates.
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From: AFHU <AFHU@mail.vresp.com>
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 18:04:16 +0000
To: <avivalev-ari@alum.berkeley.edu>
PROF. HAIM SOMPOLINSKY
The Neurophysics Lab
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please use the above link to download a PDF copy of my CV
Professor of Physics, Racah Institute of Physics
William N. Skirball Professor of Neuroscience
The Interdisciplinary Center for Neural Computation
The Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences
The Hebrew University
Jerusalem, 91904, Israel
(t) 972-2-658-4563; (f) 972-2-658-4440
haim@fiz.huji.ac.il
Personal Information
Born: Copenhagen, Denmark, 1949
Israeli citizen: 1951
Married with five children
Sompolinsky’s research goal is to uncover the fundamental principles of the organization, the dynamics and the function of the brain, viewing the brain through multiscale lenses, spanning the molecular, the cellular, and the circuit levels. To achieve this goal, Sompolinsky has developed new theoretical approaches to computational neuroscience based on the principles and methods of statistical physics, and physics of dynamical and stochastic systems. This new field, Neurophysics, builds in part on Sompolinsky’s earlier work on critical phenomena, random systems, spin glasses, and chaos. His research areas cover theoretical and computational investigations of cortical dynamics, sensory processing, motor control, neuronal population coding, long and short-term memory, and neural learning. The highlights of his research include theories and models of local cortical circuits, visual cortex, associative memory, statistical mechanics of learning, chaos and excitation-inhibition balance in neuronal networks, principles of neural population codes, statistical mechanics of compressed sensing and sparse coding in neuronal systems, and the Tempotron model of spike time based neural learning. He also studies the neuronal mechanisms of volition and the impact of physics and neuroscience on the foundations of human freedom and agency.
http://elsc.huji.ac.il/sompolinsky/biocv
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Israeli, US Profs win 1st annual Mathematical Neuroscience Prize
$100,000 prizes awarded for outstanding work in human brain modeling at BrainTech Israel 2013 Conference in Tel Aviv.
From left, Nobel Laureate Prof. Bert Sakmann; Hebrew University of Jerusalem Prof. Haim Sompolinsky; Columbia University Prof. Larry Abbott; and Dr. Rafi Gidron, founder and chairman of Israel Brain Technologies, at BrainTech Israel 2013. Sompolinsky won IBT’s inaugural Mathematical Neuroscience Prize.Hebrew University of Jerusalem Prof. Haim Sompolinsky and Columbia University Prof. Larry Abbott are the winners of the 1st Annual Mathematical Neuroscience Prize by Israel Brain Technologies (IBT). The two $100,000 prizes were awarded at the 1st annual BrainTech Israel 2013 Conference in Tel Aviv.
Prof. Haim Sompolinsky (photo: Hebrew University)
IBT’s Mathematical Neuroscience Prize honors researchers worldwide who have significantly advanced our understanding of the neural mechanisms of perception, behavior and thought through the application of mathematical analysis and theoretical modeling.
Prof. Sompolinsky is considered a pioneer in the field of computational neuroscience. He specializes in building mathematical models that describe the collective behavior and the informational processing in neural circuits in the brain. His work helps researchers understand the system-wide failures that take place in brain diseases, from epilepsy to psychiatric disorders.
“Computational neuroscience is a vibrant and ambitious field that uses mathematical theories and models to cope with the most daunting challenges – from answering fundamental questions about the brain and its relation to the mind to answering questions posed by the quest to heal the brain’s debilitating diseases,” said Sompolinsky.
Meanwhile, Prof. Abbott won for showing how plasticity mechanisms that change the properties of neural circuits can maintain their proper operation and allow them to change during the learning process.
Inspired by the vision of Israeli President Shimon Peres, IBT was set up to advance Israel’s neurotechnology industry and establish the country as a global hub of brain technology innovation.
“This prize recognizes leaders in the important field of mathematical neuroscience, whose advances support our ultimate quest to find new solutions for the betterment of all humankind,” said Miri Polachek, Executive Director of IBT.
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This is very insightful. There is no doubt that there is the bias you refer to. 42 years ago, when I was postdocing in biochemistry/enzymology before completing my residency in pathology, I knew that there were very influential mambers of the faculty, who also had large programs, and attracted exceptional students. My mentor, it was said (although he was a great writer), could draft a project on toilet paper and call the NIH. It can’t be true, but it was a time in our history preceding a great explosion. It is bizarre for me to read now about eNOS and iNOS, and about CaMKII-á, â, ã, ä – isoenzymes. They were overlooked during the search for the genome, so intermediary metabolism took a back seat. But the work on protein conformation, and on the mechanism of action of enzymes and ligand and coenzyme was just out there, and became more important with the research on signaling pathways. The work on the mechanism of pyridine nucleotide isoenzymes preceded the work by Burton Sobel on the MB isoenzyme in heart. The Vietnam War cut into the funding, and it has actually declined linearly since.
A few years later, I was an Associate Professor at a new Medical School and I submitted a proposal that was reviewed by the Chairman of Pharmacology, who was a former Director of NSF. He thought it was good enough. I was a pathologist and it went to a Biochemistry Review Committee. It was approved, but not funded. The verdict was that I would not be able to carry out the studies needed, and they would have approached it differently. A thousand young investigators are out there now with similar letters. I was told that the Department Chairmen have to build up their faculty. It’s harder now than then. So I filed for and received 3 patents based on my work at the suggestion of my brother-in-law. When I took it to Boehringer-Mannheim, they were actually clueless.