Bernard Katz Lecture
The Bernard Katz Lecture (BKL) was founded in 1991 by the Heidelberg Nobel Prize winner Prof. Dr Bert Sakmann from prize funds to honour the life's work of his academic teacher, the British Nobel Prize winner Sir Bernard Katz (1911-2003). Since then, a young scientist who has excelled in neuroscientific research has been selected to give the honorary lecture in the other country, alternating between Germany and Israel. The award is intended to promote relations between Israeli and German neuroscientists and is administered by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
Sir Bernard Katz, born in Leipzig in 1911, emigrated to London in 1935, where he continued his research work as a young physician. His work on the transmission of excitation between nerve and muscle laid the foundations for the modern physiology of synapses, the contact points of nerve cells. Sir Bernard Katz was Professor and Head of Biophysics at University College London from 1952 to 1978 and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology in 1970. Whenever possible, he attended the award ceremonies. He died in London in 2003.
Award winners 1993 - 2021
2023 | Dr Kristina Lippmann, Carl Ludwig Institute for Physiology, Medical Faculty, Leipzig University Award ceremony and honorary lecture are still pending |
2021 | Dr Sebastian H. Bitzenhofer, Institute of Developmental Neurophysiology, Center for Molecular Neurobiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf "Early activity shapes prefrontal development" |
2019 | Dr Ofer Yizhar, Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot "Optogenetic dissection of prefrontal cortical circuits" |
2017 | Dr Omri Barak, Assistant Professor, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa "Understanding trained current neural networks" |
2015 | Dr Marion Silies, European Neuroscience Institute (ENI), Group Leader, Göttingen "New neurons and unexpected features of motion-detecting circuits" |
2013 | Dr Moritz Helmstaedter, Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Group Leader, Martinsried "Connectomics: the dense reconstruction of neuronal circuits" |
2012 | Dr Nachum Ulanovsky, Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel "Neural codes for 2-D and 3-D space in the hippocampal formation of bats" |
2011 | Dr Nathalie Rochefort, Institute of Neuroscience, Technical University of Munich "Exploring the mouse visual cortex in vivo with two-photon calcium imaging" |
2010 | Dr Inna Slutsky, Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel "Regulation of hippocampal plasticity: from inter-molecular interactions to dynamics of single synapses" |
2009 | Dr Tim Gollisch, Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Independent Junior Research Group visual coding, Martinsried "Neural Code and Circuitry for Rapid Image Processing in the Retina" |
2008 | Dr Adi Mizrahi, Department of Neurobiology, The Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel "Live imaging of new neurons in the adult brain" |
2007 | Dr Pascal Fries, F.C. Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, Netherlands "Attentional selection through selective synchronisation" |
2006 | Dr Uri Ashery, Department of Neurobiochemistry, Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel "The Molecular Mechanisms of Synaptic Transmission: The Roles of DOC2B and Tomosyn" |
2005 | Prof. Dr. Dietmar Schmitz, Humboldt University Berlin, Neuroscience Research Centre, Berlin "Plasticity at the Hippocampal Mossy Fibre Synapse" |
2004 | Dr Noam Zilberberg, Dept. of Life Sciences, Ben Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Israel "Regulated Gating of Leak Potassium Channels" |
2003 | Dr Richard Warth, Institute of Physiology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland "The multi-faceted functions of KCNQ1 potassium channels" |
2002 | Dr Karen B. Avraham, Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel "The Genetics of Deafness: A Model for Genomic and Biological Complexity" |
2001 | Dr Siegfried Waldegger, University Clinic for Paediatrics, Marburg, Germany "Modulation of KCNQ Potassium Channel Function by ß-Subunits" |
2000 | Dr Israel Nelken, The Interdisciplinary Center for Neural Computation, Jerusalem, Israel "Coding of Auditory Foregrounds and Backgrounds in Auditory Cortex" |
1999 | Dr Andreas Kleinschmidt, Institute of Neurology, University of London, London, Great Britain "Linking cerebral blood oxygenation to human brain function" |
1998 | Dr Frederic Libersat, Dept. Of Life Sciences, Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheva, Israel "How does a parasitoid Polynesian wasp control the cockroach's mind?" |
1997 | Dr Michael Pusch, Istituto di Cibernetica e Biofisica, Genoa, Italy "Voltage-dependent chloride channels: From biophysics to human hereditary diseases" |
1996 | Dr Chaya Kalcheim, Dept. of Anatomy and Embryology, Hebrew University - Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel "Trophic interactions in development of neural progenitor cells" |
1995 | Dr Andreas E. Busch, Head of Cardiovascular Research Hoechst Marion Roussel, Frankfurt "Physiology, Pharmacology and Regulation of Slowly Activating Isk Channels" |
1994 | Dr Shimon Marom, Rappaport Family Institute for Research in the Medical Sciences, Haifa, Israel "Slow Inactivation of Voltage-Gated Potassium Channels: why bother?" |
1993 | Dr Peter Stern, Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Department of Neurophysiology, Frankfurt "Single Channel Properties of Cloned NMDA-Receptors" |
Organisation and administration
Dr Oliver Lange
Regina Basse
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
Head of Division: Life Sciences
Jean-Paul-Str. 12 / D-53173 Bonn / Germany