Scolnick Award:

The Scolnick Prize is awarded annually by the McGovern Institute to recognize outstanding advances in the field of neuroscience. The prize is named in honor of Edward M. Scolnick, who stepped down as president of Merck Research Laboratories in December 2002 after holding Merck’s top research post for 17 years. Scolnick is now at the Broad Institute, where he established the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research. He also served as a member of the McGovern Institute’s scientific advisory board. The prize, which is endowed through a gift from Merck to the McGovern Institute, consists of a $225,000 award, plus an inscribed gift.

Date: Tuesday, June 16
Time: 4:00pm
Location: 46-3002, Singleton Auditorium (Third floor of MIT Building 46)
This is an in-person event, followed by a reception. 

2026 Speaker: Liqun Luo, PhD

Talk Title: Wiring Specificity of Neural Circuits

Abstract:  

Developing brains use a limited number of cell-surface proteins to instruct wiring specificity of a much larger number of neurons and synapses. How is this feat achieved? How do different cell-surface proteins work together to assemble a functional circuit? To address these questions, I will first describe our work using the fly olfactory circuit, focusing on a recent study in which we rewired the circuit by altering the combinatorial code of cell-surface proteins. I will then discuss functions of similar cell-surface proteins in instructing wiring specificity of neural circuits in the mouse brain.

Bio:

Liqun Luo grew up in Shanghai, China. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Science & Technology of China, PhD from Brandeis University, and postdoctoral training at UCSF. Since 1996, Dr. Luo has been on the faculty of Stanford, where he studies the assembly and function of neural circuits in fruit flies and mice. He has been teaching neurobiology to undergraduate and graduate students, from which he wrote the widely used textbook “Principles of Neurobiology”. Dr. Luo is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a recipient of the 2025 National Academy of Science Award in the Neurosciences.