Honorary Members

Nominated on March 26 2011 on the occasion of the SSN annual meeting in Basel.

Beat Gähwiler was born in 1940 (Zug) and studied physics at the University of Fribourg and biophysics at the University of Basel. He did his doctorate in the Laboratory for Medical Physics, Dept. of Radiology of the medical Center of the University of Basel. In 1970, he became acting director of this laboratory. He subsequently opted to study biophysical properties of membranes at the University of California, Berkeley where he became research associate in 1972. At Berkeley he acquainted himself with neuronal cell cultures and the way to record their bioelectrical activity. In 1973, he was nominated head of a research laboratory within the preclinical research centre of Sandoz, Basel. During the period, he published the first key papers on electrical activity and neurotransmitter receptors in slice cultures. In 1979, he obtained his habilitation at the University of Basel. In 1987, B. Gähwiler joined the Brain Research Institute of Zürich, where he became full professor and developed the organotypic cell culture technique to perfection, contributing landmark studies in the field of synaptic transmission and plasticity. He was for several periods (co-)director of this institute. Since 2005 he is emeritus professor of the University of Zürich. Through the 183 full papers published, B. Gähwiler has contributed to the disclosure of fundamental aspects of neuronal communication and synaptic integration. His studies cover various brain areas – cerebellum, hypothalamus, hippocampus and cerebral cortex. The in vitro methods he developed have become standard tools in neuroscience laboratories worldwide. B. Gähwiler is an active member in a large number of research foundations and advisory boards around the whole world. He has formed and coached an impressive number of students; many of whom became leaders in their own field of neuroscience.

Nominated on March 13th 2010 on the occasion of the SSN annual meeting in Lausanne.

Prof. Alexander A. Borbély, born in 1939, studied Medicine at the Universities of Geneva and Zurich. After the doctorate he spent two years in the Research Laboratory of Electronics in MIT to educate himself further in biology signal analysis and electric physiology. Afterwards, he returned in the Institute of Pharmacology of the University of Zurich where he was promoted through several qualifications, and became full professor for pharmacology in 1992.

Prof. Borbély is an Honorary Doctor of Medical University Szeged (Hungarian) as well as the University of Warsaw (Poland). He was distinguished with several national and international prices, thus with Georg Friedrich Götz Preis of the University of Zurich, to the Anna-Monika price of depression research, to Pisa Sleep Award as well as the Distinguished Scientist Award of the World Federation of Sleep Research Societies.

His main research focuses ranged from psychopharmacology, sleeping regularization with animals and humans, bio-mathematical models as well as different methodical developments. In recognition of his scientific career and influential contribution to the neuroscience community in Switzerland, the SSN has elected Alex Borbély as Honorary Member. 

Nominated on March 15th 2009 on the occasion of the SSN annual meeting in Fribourg

Ann C. Kato took her Ph.D. degree from McGillUniversity in Montreal, Canada and from 1974 to 1977, she did her post-doctoral training at the College de France, Paris. In 1977 she joined the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Geneva where she was Professor in the Department of Basic Neuroscience. Her field of research is related to diseases of the motor system particularly amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and in 2003, she received the Bruno and Ilse Frick Prize for ALS research in Switzerland.

She was Vice-president and then President of the Swiss Society for Neuroscience from 1996 to 2000. From 1997 to 2004, she organized "Brain Week" at the University of Geneva; she is the founder of the Lake Geneva Innovation Society, an honorary member of the European Dana Alliance for the Brain and was an elected member of the Western European Chapter of the International Brain Research Organisation (IBRO) (2003-2008). She was President of the Swiss Committee for organising the 2008 Federation of European Meeting of Neurosciences (FENS) in Geneva and she is President of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Fondation AETAS for ageing.

Nominated on March 10th 2007 on the occasion of the SSN annual meeting in Berne.

Jean-Jacques Dreifuss, born in 1936, studied medicine and biomedical sciences at the University of Geneva, where he took M.D. and Ph.D. degrees. He was a research associate at the Montreal Neurological Institute of McGill University and at Yale University, New Haven, USA. As a recipient of the Burrus Prize of the Swiss National Science Foundation (NSF), he also spent a year at the Department of Biophysics, University College London. In 1969, he joined the Department of Physiology at the University of Geneva Medical School, where he became full professor of neurophysiology in 1980, and chair of the department from 1994-2001. He created and chaired the University of Geneva Interfacultary Progam of Neurosciences.

His main research dealt with the correlation of the firing of hypothalamic magnocellular neurones with the blood levels of vasopressin and oxytocin, with the mechanism of release of these peptides from the neural lobe of the pituitary gland by exocytosis, with their action on the firing of central nervous system neurones, and with the characterization of the receptors involved by autoradiographical, electrophysiological and pharmacological means. He also writes articles and taught various topics in the history of the biomedical sciences. He is a personal member of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences and was a member of the scientific council of the Swiss NSF from 1994 to 2003.

Nominated on March 10th 2007 on the occasion of the SSN annual meeting in Berne.

Michel Cuenod, born 1933, is a Swiss MD with experience in psychiatry and a neuroscientist trained in neurophysiology, neurochemistry  and neuromorphology.  He has been Professor of Neurobiology and Director of the Brain Research Institute of Zurich University. He has been president of the European Neuroscience Association and one of the founders of the European Journal of Neuroscience. As Secretary General of the Human Frontier Science Program Organisation, he contributed to the promotion of international cooperation in molecular biology and neuroscience.

Since retirement in 1998, he is visiting professor in the Centre for Psychiatric Neurosciences of Lausanne University. In the course of his scientific carrier, he established a split-brain model of the pigeon visual system. He worked on the rapid axonal transport, both anterograde and retrograde, at the light and electron microscopy levels. Together with his collaborators, he developed the concept of "transmitter specific retrograde labelling" allowing to mark selectively neuronal pathways according to their transmitter. He then moved to the study of excitatory amino-acid transmission in the optic nerve and established homocysteic acid as "gliotransmitter" acting on NMDA receptors.

He contributed to our understanding of the role of NO in synaptic transmission. More recently, he became active in neurobiology of schizophrenia, where, with Kim Do, he promoted the concept of redox imbalance due to impaired glutathione synthesis of genetic origin as a vulnerability factor for the disease.

Nominated on January 28th 2006 on the occasion of the SSN annual meeting in Basel.
In recognition of his exceptional scientific career and his constant efforts to promote Neuroscience in Switzerland. Among many initiatives, Professor Konrad Akert played a major role in the development of the Swiss chapter of the IBRO, the ancestor of the SSN.