UM Neuroscientist Huda Akil Receives Julius Axelrod Prize
Dr. Huda Akil, Co-Director and Senior Research Professor of the Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute and Gardner Quarton Distinguished University Professor of Neuroscience and Psychiatry, has been awarded the 2019 Julius Axelrod Prize by the Society for Neuroscience (SfN). The Prize is named for Julius Axelrod, who shared the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discoveries on neurotransmitters. It honors a researcher who has distinguished achievements in neuropharmacology in addition to exemplary efforts in mentoring young scientists. Dr. Akil has made seminal contributions to the field of affective neuroscience. She provided the first physiological evidence for the existence and role of endogenous opioids in the brain. Her laboratory, in collaboration with that of Dr. Stanley J. Watson, has implicated new genes in the biology of depression. Dr. Akil has had a tremendous impact on the future of neuroscience by her efforts in mentoring students and faculty colleagues at various stages of their careers. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.
