WASHINGTON, D.C. — SfN members Christine Holt, PhD, Kelsey C. Martin, MD, PhD, Erin Schuman, PhD, and Oswald Steward, PhD, have been awarded the 2026 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience for the discovery of local protein translation in neurons and establishing its importance for brain development and plasticity. The awardees will share a $1 million prize and be celebrated during an award ceremony in Oslo, Norway in September.
Christine Holt is a professor emerita of Developmental Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge. Her work showed that severed axons in the developing brain could navigate without contact with the cell body — suggesting axons have their own machinery for protein synthesis and breaking the dogma that proteins are created in the cell body. More recently, her work has demonstrated an important link between this process, called local translation, and neurodegenerative disorders such as ALS. Holt is a 25-year member of SfN and previously served as an associate editor of JNeurosci .
Kelsey C. Martin is the executive vice president of autism and neuroscience at the Simons Foundation. Her lab discovered that single branches of neuronal axons can develop stronger synapses as a result of applied serotonin, without instructions from the cell body. This challenged the idea that proteins needed for synapses must be created in the cell body and transferred to axons. Martin is a 23-year member of SfN and previously served on the Society’s Education Committee.
Erin Schuman is a director and professor at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research. Her research revealed that synapses can be strengthened in dendrites that have been physically severed from the cell body — challenging the belief that the cell body is necessary for this process. She expanded on her research by uncovering that more than 2,000 mRNAs exist in dendrites and axons of neurons, uncovering the great extent to which proteins can be produced locally, away from the cell body. Schuman is a 21-year member of SfN and served as a Councilor and on the International Affairs Committee.
Oswald Steward is the distinguished professor of anatomy and neurobiology at the University of California, Irvine, and founding director of the Reeve Irvine Research Center. His efforts were the first to discover polyribosomes, which enable protein synthesis, exist in neuronal dendrites. This suggested that proteins could be produced locally near synapses where neurons communicate, not just in the cell body like previously thought. Steward is a 23-year member of the Society and served as SfN president from 2022–2023. He also volunteered on the SfN Finance Committee, Audit Committee, Public Information Committee, and Chapters Committee.
The Kavli Prize honors scientists for breakthroughs in astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience that transform human understanding of the big, the small, and the most complex. A $1 million prize is awarded every other year in each of the three fields.
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The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) is an organization of nearly 30,000 basic scientists and clinicians who study the brain and the nervous system.