Hongkui Zeng elected to the National Academy of Sciences
Zeng was chosen for her contributions to understanding the cells and connections of the brain
2023-05-03
(Press-News.org) Hongkui Zeng, Ph.D., Executive Vice President and Director of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, a division of the Allen Institute, was today elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences for her work to understand the cells and connections in the mammalian brain, and leading the development of tools and openly available data resources that accelerate brain research worldwide.
“I am deeply honored to become a member of the National Academy of Sciences, joining more than 3,000 brilliant scientists around the country and the world,” said Zeng. “I feel incredibly fortunate to work at the Allen Institute alongside so many amazing colleagues. Together we have made a true impact to our understanding of brain function and brain diseases, by pioneering large-scale team science and open science approaches.”
Zeng is among 120 new members and 23 international members elected to the National Academy of Sciences this year. The Academy recognizes achievement in science by election to membership, and—with the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine—provides science, engineering, and health policy advice to the federal government and other organizations.
“Hongkui’s tireless dedication to solving the mysteries of the brain’s cellular make-up is an inspiration to all of us in neuroscience,” said Rui Costa, D.V.M., Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of the Allen Institute. “Her leadership and vision for large, pioneering programs represent the epitome of team science. The impact she’s had on the Institute and on the scientific community is immeasurable.”
Zeng joined the Allen Institute in 2006. During the last two decades, she has organized and led multidisciplinary teams to develop and operate high-throughput pipelines to generate large-scale, open-access datasets and tools to accelerate neuroscience discovery, with a focus on characterizing the cell type and circuit organization in the mouse brain as the foundation for understanding brain function and diseases. Zeng has led several key research programs including the Transgenic Technology program (gene modification); the Human Cortex Gene Survey project; the Allen Mouse Brain Connectivity Atlas (mapping connections between different regions of the mouse brain), one of the Allen Institute’s most widely downloaded and used open-data resources; and most notably, the Cell Types program to create transcriptomic (gene expression) and multimodal cell type classifications that have been widely regarded as high-quality standards in the field. Zeng is also the principal investigator on several large National Institutes of Health-funded research projects and programs, most recently as one of the principal investigators on a global collaboration through the BRAIN Initiative® Cell Atlas Network to map the entire human, macaque and marmoset brains by their cells and functions.
Earlier this year, the National Academy of Sciences awarded Zeng with the prestigious Pradel Research Award for her pioneering work in neuroscience.
About the Allen Institute
The Allen Institute is an independent, 501(c)(3) nonprofit research organization founded by philanthropist and visionary, the late Paul G. Allen. The Allen Institute is dedicated to answering some of the biggest questions in bioscience and accelerating research worldwide. The Institute is a recognized leader in large-scale research with a commitment to an open science model. Its research institutes and programs include the Allen Institute for Brain Science, launched in 2003, the Allen Institute for Cell Science, launched in 2014, The Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group, launched in 2016, the Allen Institute for Immunology, launched in 2018, the MindScope Program, launched in 2020 and the Allen Institute for Neural Dynamics, launched in 2021. For more information, visit alleninstitute.org.
###
Media Contact
Peter Kim, Sr. Manager, Media Relations
(206) 605-9884 | press@alleninstitute.org
END
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2023-05-03
People diagnosed with dementia are more likely to self-harm within the first six to 12 months after initial diagnosis, highlighting the need for health services to offer more follow-up support in this crucial period.
In what is believed to be the largest study of its kind, researchers with expertise in medicine, psychiatry and psychology at UNSW Sydney looked at NSW hospital data captured for more than 180,000 people admitted to hospital between 2001 and 2015.
The researchers analysed statistics relating to two cohorts of patients admitted to hospital: 154,811 people recorded as having dementia, and ...
2023-05-03
When we think of boxing, it’s understandable many of us wouldn’t associate it with being ‘good’ for our brains.
However, new Edith Cowan University (ECU) research undertaken in partnership with The Perron Institute and boxer Rai Fazio has shown the sport — without an opponent — could be a valuable way for people suffering Parkinson’s Disease (PD) to improve their quality of life.
Also collaborating with Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital and the University of Western Australia, ECU researchers had 10 people with early-stage PD perform three one-hour boxing sessions per week, over 15 weeks.
Rather ...
2023-05-03
The University of Hong Kong (HKU) triumphed at the 48th International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva, winning a total of 19 awards, including two special grand prizes Invention & Innovation CAI Award (China Delegation), and Prize of the Delegation of Malaysia. The results were announced yesterday (April 28).
Research teams from Faculty of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of Science, LKS Faculty of Medicine, and two HKU Inno Laboratories, established under the Hong Kong Government's InnoHK programme, garnered two special grand prizes, one Gold Medal with the Congratulations of the Jury, six Gold Medals, six Silver Medals ...
2023-05-03
Cartilage is a tissue that protects bones by providing shock absorption and facilitates smooth joint movement. Unfortunately, due to its limited intrinsic healing capacity, stem cell transplantation is a promising therapeutic approach to address cartilage inflammation and damage, as well as to promote cartilage regeneration. However, a major limitation of this technique is the rapid disappearance of transplanted stem cells from the smooth cartilage surface and fluidic environment around cartilage, resulting in less effective treatment outcomes. Recently, a joint team of researchers from POSTECH, Dongguk University Medical Center, and Nature Gluetech in Korea ...
2023-05-03
How has online sleuthing successfully replaced wanted posters?
Researchers within the Virginia Tech Department of Computer Science answered this question by studying the crowdsourced online investigation that followed the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
“These online communities can provide real value, if they’re organized in the right way,” said Kurt Luther, associate professor of computer science and history. “These aren’t just digital witch hunts now that make false identifications. They can really make solid contributions to ongoing investigations by getting images in front of people, which ...
2023-05-03
COLUMBUS, Ohio (May 3, 2023) — Concerns continue to grow about the impact social media use has on the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents. According to a new national survey conducted online by The Harris Poll on behalf of The On Our Sleeves Movement For Children’s Mental Health, half (50%) of parents of children younger than 18 feel their child(ren)’s mental health has suffered during the past 12 months because of social media use.
To best understand how social media is impacting their children’s mental health, On Our Sleeves encourages parents and caregivers to sit down and have ...
2023-05-03
In a world hungry for clean energy, engineers have created a new material that converts the simple mechanical vibrations all around us into electricity to power sensors in everything from pacemakers to spacecraft.
The first of its kind and the product of a decade of work by researchers at the University of Waterloo and the University of Toronto, the novel generating system is compact, reliable, low-cost and very, very green.
“Our breakthrough will have a significant social and economic impact by reducing our reliance on non-renewable power sources,” said Asif Khan, a ...
2023-05-02
Dr. Zhijian “Z.J.” Pei and his intercollegiate team recently received the Future Manufacturing Research Grant from the National Science Foundation’s Future Manufacturing program, which funds researchers to develop new manufacturing capability that does not exist today. The focus of this research grant is to substitute products made from petroleum-based plastics or natural wood with biomass.
“Our idea is to use living matter, including fungi, algae, bacteria, plus agriculturally derived biomass and use 3D printing to make products,” said Pei, professor in the Wm Michael Barnes ’64 ...
2023-05-02
“A biomarker or set of biomarkers to inform on the individual progression risk would be beneficial to the patient and cost-effective for the healthcare system."
BUFFALO, NY- May 2, 2023 – A new research perspective was published in Oncotarget's Volume 14 on April 24, 2023, entitled, “Crossroads: the role of biomarkers in the management of lumps in the breast.”
Here, Dr. Georg F. Weber from the University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center discusses a long-standing issue in women’s health: ...
2023-05-02
Electroencephalography (EEG) is an indispensable tool used by clinicians to diagnose neurological diseases and by researchers to study and discover brain circuit mechanisms that support sensory, mnemonic, and cognitive processing. A new software - Openseize - created by Dr. Matthew Caudill, an investigator at the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital and assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine, can now analyze massive amounts of one-dimensional digital ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Hongkui Zeng elected to the National Academy of Sciences
Zeng was chosen for her contributions to understanding the cells and connections of the brain
