Sweet smell of success for olfactory researcher

How does the brain identify and respond to specific smells? Research on the neural circuits underlying chemical perception has won the Eppendorf and Science Prize for Neurobiology 2007

By probing how odours are encoded in the fruit fly brain, Rachel Wilson's research could eventually help engineers optimise artificial devices designed to detect odours associated with diseases or hazardous chemicals.

Wilson, assistant professor of neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, received the award during the 37th annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.

Most animals are constantly alert to odours which can signal a food source, a danger zone or a potential mate.

In insects, receptor neurons in the antennae send olfactory information to the brain via a series of electrical impulses in the axons of these neurons.

Rachel Wilson's research is aimed at understanding how sensory stimuli are encoded in the electrical activity of specific groups of neurons in the brain, using the tiny brain of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, as a simple model system.

In her prize-winning essay, Wilson describes a series of recent studies from her laboratory involving electrophysiological recordings from single neurons in the adult Drosophila brain in vivo.

She writes: "These experiments in Drosophila illustrate how invertebrates are helping neuroscientists bridge the conceptual gap between cells and circuits to understand the logic of neural computations".

Sponsored jointly by Eppendorf and the internationally renowned journal Science, this prestigious $25,000 prize is open to scientists under the age of 35 who have made outstanding contributions to neurobiological research using molecular and cell biology methods.

Rachel Wilson was selected from around 30 applicants as winner of the Eppendorf and Science Prize for Neurobiology 2007 by a committee of distinguished scientists chaired by Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief of Science magazine.

The presentation took place on 5 November at a gala dinner for over 90 guests from the scientific community and related industries in San Diego, USA.

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