Smell research wins Eppendorf and Science Prize

Dr Richard Benton from the 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, assistant professor at the university's Center for Integrative Genomics, has focused his research on the olfactory receptors of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.

His work has revealed 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 wrote: '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 USD25,000 (GBP15,175) award is sponsored by Eppendorf and the journal Science.

It is open to scientists of 35 years of age or younger who have made outstanding contributions to neurobiological research using molecular and cell-biology methods.

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