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Gilles Laurent has made fundamental discoveries about how large groups of brain cells function in a dynamic and coordinated way. By integrating comparative, evolutionary, functional, and molecular neuroscience with computational theory, he has shaped the modern understanding of neuronal populations. In 2025, the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine, which honors excellence in biomedical and basic research, will be awarded to Gilles Laurent, director of the MPI for Brain Research in Frankfurt, and Veit Hornung, professor at LMU Munich. The prize, endowed with 500,000 francs each, will be presented in Geneva on April 9, 2025.
Understanding the brain through the study of simple neural systems
The human brain is probably the most complex “machine” in the universe. With over 80 billion neurons and about as many glial cells, over 100 trillion synaptic connections and hundreds of thousands of kilometres of wiring (axons and dendrites), what may be seen as the pinnacle of biological evolution is still very poorly understood. However, precisely because it is the result of evolution, the principles of its organization and functions — with the exception of a few, such as language, unique to our species — are found in the nervous systems of most animals.
By choosing well-adapted animal model systems and exploiting their singularity and relative simplicity, Gilles Laurent showed that these similarities in neural organization are the result either of shared phylogenetic relationships or of functional convergence, and sometimes of both. By describing functional principles of small systems and testing them with larger or more complex systems, he provided an understanding of the diversity, or singularity, of the solutions found by evolution to solve common functions such as smelling, seeing, moving, learning, etc., and the possibility of extracting their shared principles. This approach revealed that in certain cases a common function, for example learning, can be achieved in several ways; or on the contrary, that a particular type of neural network can be used for completely different functions, for example to control a motor rhythm, or to control certain fundamental aspects of sleep.
During his career, Gilles Laurent has revealed these mechanisms and types of relationships by studying the brains of insects, cephalopods, fish, reptiles and mammals. As a result, he has touched on very diverse areas of neuroscience, ranging from network dynamics to oscillatory waves in the brain, olfactory encoding, perception of visual textures, and sleep and brain evolution. Thanks to the combination of new molecular, electrophysiological, ethological and computational techniques, his approach also initiated the development of techniques for representing and analyzing multi-neuronal data and contributed to a renaissance of comparative and evolutionary functional neuroscience.
Gilles Laurent
A French national, Gilles Laurent studied veterinary medicine and obtained a doctorate in Neuroethology in Toulouse. After a postdoctoral stay in Cambridge, UK, he became professor of Biology and Computation and Neural Systems at the California Institute of Technology. In 2009, he was recruited to be a founding co-director of the new Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt, where he has since headed the Department of Neural Systems.
The Louis-Jeantet Foundation’s Prizes
Every year, the Louis-Jeantet Foundation awards two Prizes distinguishing leading-edge researchers who are active in the member states of the Council of Europe. As one of the best-endowed awards, the Prizes foster scientific excellence. They are not intended solely as the recognition of work that has been completed, but also to encourage the continuation of innovative research projects. The Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine rewards work in the field of biomedical research, both in its fundamental and clinical aspects. The Collen-Jeantet Prize for Translational Medicine recognizes, with the generous support of the Désiré Collen Stichting, a major advance close to practical applications for combating illnesses affecting humankind. The Louis-Jeantet Foundation endows each of the two prizes with CHF 500,000, of which CHF 450,000 is intended to finance the continuation of the of the prize-winners' research and CHF 50,000 is for their personal use.
The Louis-Jeantet Foundation
Founded in 1983, the Louis-Jeantet Foundation is the legacy of Louis Jeantet, a French businessman and a citizen of Geneva by adoption. The Foundation’s aim is to move medicine forward and to defend the role and identity of European biomedical research vs. international competition. Established in Geneva, the Foundation is part of an open Europe and devotes its efforts to recognizing and fostering medical progress for the common good.
Prof. Gilles Laurent
E-mail: g.laurent@brain.mpg.de
Website: www.brain.mpg.de
https://www.jeantet.ch/en/prizes-louis-jeantet/prize-winners/
Prof. Gilles Laurent
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