The University of Notre Dame’s College of Science will award the 2023 Rev. Joseph Carrier, C.S.C., Science Medal to Dr. Thomas Südhof, Stanford University’s Avram Goldstein Professor Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a professor in both the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology and the Department of Neurosurgery.
Südhof was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2013 for his work from the 1990s in which he studied sac-like structures, called vesicles, that transport substances to different places inside the cell and then send molecules from the cell’s surface as signals to other cells in the body.
By studying brain cells from mice, he showed how vesicles are held in place, ready to release signal-bearing molecules at the right moment, according to the Nobel Prize website. He shared the prize with James E. Rothman and Randy W. Schekman.
Südhof will accept the Rev. Carrier Medal at 5 p.m. Monday (Oct. 23) in the Dahnke Ballroom, on the seventh floor of the Duncan Student Center at Notre Dame. His lecture, “Toward a Cell Biology of Alzheimer’s Disease,” will describe his laboratory’s recent studies that illustrate how investigations into the cell biology of neurons and glia have the potential to provide insight into the molecular mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease, and might lead to better therapies. The event is free and open to the public. A reception will follow.
The annual Carrier Medal is the most prestigious award presented by the College of Science, and is given for sustained, outstanding achievements in any field of science. The medalists are invited to give a lecture on the campus of the University of Notre Dame. The award is named after Rev. Joseph Celestine Basile Carrier, C.S.C., who is recognized as the first director of the science program at the University in 1865, when the College of Science was established as a department.
The inaugural Rev. Carrier Medal and Lecture was first awarded in 2022 to Donna Strickland, a 2018 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics and a professor at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
For more about Dr. Thomas Südhof and the award, visit the College of Science website.
Originally published by at news.nd.edu on October 19, 2023.