Botond Roska

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Botond M. Roska (born December 17, 1969 in Budapest ) is a Hungarian neuroscientist at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel and at the Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology at the University of Basel . He is considered a leader in the field of (still experimental) restoration of lost eyesight .

Live and act

Roska was born in Budapest as the son of a computer scientist and a pianist. After studying music at the Franz Liszt Music Academy ( violoncello , 1985-1989) and studying mathematics at the Eötvös Loránd University (1991-1995) at the Semmelweis University (all in Budapest ), he obtained an MD as a degree of medical studies (1989–1995). Roska gave up a possible music career due to an injury.

In 2002 he received a Ph.D. from Frank S. Werblin at the University of California, Berkeley . in neurobiologist with the work Vertical interactions among parallel image representations in the rabbit retina . Roska worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Constance L. Cepko and Markus Meister at Harvard University .

In 2005 Roska received her own research group at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research , and in 2014 he became professor at the Medical Faculty of the University of Basel . Together with Hendrik Scholl, he is one of the two founding directors of the Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology (IOB) , which started operations in 2018 and is mainly funded by the University of Basel and its facilities. Volker Busskamp is one of Roska's students.

Roska deals with the neurobiology of vision at the level of the individual nerve cell and at the level of the neural circuits of the retina , thalamus and visual cortex . Using molecular genetic methods, the cause of various genetically determined forms of blindness could be clarified. Using modern methods such as optogenetics and gene therapy , non- photoreceptor cells are transformed into artificial photosensors in animal experiments , which should develop into a therapy for blindness in humans.

Roska has been a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization since 2011 . In 2018 he was awarded the Bressler Prize from the Lighthouse Guild , a leading non-profit organization in the field of fighting blindness, and the W. Alden Spencer Award from Columbia University , and in 2019 the Louis Jeantet Prize and the Cloëtta Prize excellent. In 2020 he received the Körber Prize for European Science .

Roska is married and has three children.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Yannik Ramsel: Mister Retina. Blindness is usually incurable. Botond Roska wants to change that, he is one of the most important eye researchers in the world. In: Die Zeit , No. 36 of August 27, 2020, p. 29.
  2. a b Körber Prize for pioneers in ophthalmology . In: zdf.de, September 7, 2020 (accessed September 8, 2020).
  3. Botond Roska. In: embo.org. European Molecular Biology Organization , accessed March 10, 2019 .
  4. 40th Annual W. Alden Spencer Lecture and Award. In: columbia.edu. Columbia University , accessed March 10, 2019 .
  5. 2018 Bressler Prize Awarded to Botond Roska, MD, PhD for Outstanding Accomplishments in Vision Science Research. In: prnewswire.com. March 6, 2018, accessed March 10, 2019 .
  6. ^ Botond Roska - Winner of the 2019 Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine. In: jeantet.ch. Louis Jeantet Foundation , accessed March 10, 2019 .
  7. ^ Louis Jeantet Prize for retinal researcher Botond Roska. In: unibas.ch. University of Basel , January 23, 2019, accessed on March 10, 2019 (Swiss Standard German).