The Pershing Square Foundation has announced the seven recipients of its 2024 ‘MIND’ Prize (Maximizing Innovation in Neuroscience Discovery), which supports researchers who aim to uncover a deeper understanding of the brain and cognition.

Each honoree will receive $750,000 to be distributed over three years in support of novel interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary work across academic departments and institutions and among the academic, biomedical industry, philanthropic, and business communities. Recipients include Hachung Chung (Columbia University Irving Medical Center), who is working to develop a new paradigm that autoinflammatory reactions against the body’s own RNAs is an early event that initiates and accelerates neurodegeneration; Antonio Fernandez-Ruiz (Cornell University), in support of his work to dissect the circuit and cell-type specific mechanisms of altered neural dynamics—which normally support memory processes—in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s Disease; Alex Pollen (University of California, San Francisco), who is studying neurodegeneration by combining cellular models with evolutionary and functional genetics approaches to identify human-specific cellular vulnerabilities and candidate therapeutic targets; and Longzhi Tan (Stanford University) in support of a project to build the next generation of DNA sequencing–based “biochemical microscopes” to precisely measure and manipulate the genome architecture of individual cells to uncover the fundamental principles of how DNA folds and regulates gene expression.

“Cognitive disease disorders are holisms—wholes bigger than the sum of their parts—requiring us to apply systems-based thinking across cellular, organismic, and behavioral scales,” said Pershing Square Foundation co-trustee Neri Oxman. “The winners of the 2024 MIND Prize embody such system-based thinking in their work....We look forward to honoring these contributions.”

For the complete list of MIND Prize winners, see the Pershing Square Foundation website.

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