Dimitri N Chorafas Prize is awarded to Alessandro Furlan
Alessandro Furlan, doctoral student at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics has received the Dimitris N. Chorafas Prize 2016 for his thesis "Neuronal types and their specification dynamics in the autonomic nervous system".
Alessandro Furlan receives the prize for his research aiming to identify molecular mechanisms and signaling pathways that regulate the nervous system, with particular focus on the autonomic nervous system.
Alessandro Furlan is first author of an article in EMBO Journal where he describes the role of the transcription factor HMX1 for development of noradrenergic sympathetic neurons. In a subsequent study in Nature Neuroscience, he reports a much greater specificity in the sympathetic system than previously known. He also co-first authored a Science paper describing the emergence of the parasympathetic neurons from stem-like cells.
Alessandro Furlan will defend his thesis in November 2016 and will after that start his post-doc training at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, USA.
About the prize
The Dimitris N. Chorafas Foundation was founded in 1992 and since 1996 the Foundation has a collaboration with 23 partner universities, including Karolinska Institutet. The subject area ‘medical science’ focuses on new PhD holders or doctoral students who are in the final phase of their doctoral work. The candidates should not be above 30 years of age during their public defence.