Ramirez Receives 2018 McKnight Award
Neuroscientist to receive $300K to study negative memories and fear response
The McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience has selected Steve Ramirez (CAS’10), a Boston University assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences, to receive one of four 2018 Memory and Cognitive Disorders Awards. Ramirez will receive $300,000 between 2018 and 2020 for his project, Artificially Modulating Positive and Negative Memories to Alleviate Maladaptive Fear Responses.
The Memory and Cognitive Disorders Awards support innovative research by US scientists who are studying neurological and psychiatric diseases, especially those related to memory and cognition. The awards encourage collaboration between basic and clinical neuroscience to translate laboratory discoveries about the brain and nervous system into diagnoses and therapies to improve human health.
The awards will support studies of genes, genetic mutations, and areas of the brain involved in memory formation and neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, autism, and post-traumatic stress disorder. With 96 letters of intent received this year, the awards are highly competitive. A committee of distinguished scientists reviews the letters and invites a select few researchers to submit full proposals.
“Members of our selection committee are particularly enthusiastic about the wide range of approaches we were able to fund this year, from projects that marry virtual reality technology to the neuroscience of memory, to high-level cognitive physiology, to genetic approaches,” says Wendy Suzuki, chair of the awards committee and a professor of neural science and psychology at New York University. “All are trying to get at just how our brains respond to and are influenced by the environment.”
The awards are inspired by the interests of William L. McKnight, who established the McKnight Foundation in 1953 to support research on diseases affecting memory. His daughter, Virginia McKnight Binger, and the McKnight Foundation board established the McKnight neuroscience program in his honor in 1977.
The McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience is an independent organization funded solely by the McKnight Foundation of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and led by a board of prominent neuroscientists from around the country. The McKnight Foundation has supported neuroscience research since 1977. The foundation established the endowment fund in 1986 to carry out one of the intentions of founder William L. McKnight (1887–1978), one of the early leaders of the 3M Company.
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