Erin Schuman, director at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt, has been awarded the prestigious Körber European Science Prize, worth one million euros. Schuman’s work has revolutionised our understanding of how neurons work. Her research has shown that proteins critical for neuron communication, memory storage and overall brain development are produced locally at synapses, the junctions between neurons. This discovery overturns the long-held belief that proteins are only made in the neuron cell body.
“With many thousands of synapses per neuron and hundreds