Romanian-born scientist receives IBRO-Dargut and Milena Kemali neuroscience research prize

Romanian-born Sergiu Pașca, an associate professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, received the 2022 IBRO-Dargut and Milena Kemali International Prize for Research in the field of Basic and Clinical Neurosciences, Edupedu.ro reported.

He was offered the award “in recognition of his innovative research work using stem cell technology to create human brain organoids and assembloids, and their application to realistic studies of cellular mechanisms of human brain development and disease mechanisms,” according to a presentation from the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO).

He will receive the prize during the next FENS Forum of Neuroscience, held in July 2022 in Paris, France. Pașca will also give the featured IBRO-Kemali Lecture at the event.

The IBRO Dargut and Milena Kemali International Prize for Research in Basic and Clinical Neurosciences is awarded every two years to an outstanding researcher, under the age of 45, who has made important contributions in the field. The prize amounts to EUR 25,000, and the winner is invited to give a featured lecture at the FENS Forum of Neuroscience, the largest international neuroscience meeting in Europe.

Pașcais a tenured Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, the Bonnie Uytengsu and Family Director of Stanford Brain Organogenesis and a Stanford Bio-X faculty member at Stanford University in the United States. He is also a New York Stem Cell Foundation Robertson Investigator and a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Ben Barres Investigator.

He previously received the Joseph Altman Award in Developmental Neuroscience by the Japanese Neuroscience Society (2021), the Judson Daland Prize from the American Philosophical Society (2021), the Vilcek Prize for Creative Biomedical Promise (2018) and recognition as a Nature Medicine’s Featured Physician-Scientists (2019). His current research seeks to understand the rules that govern the molecular and cellular steps underlying the assembly of the human brain and the molecular mechanisms that lead to disease.

IBRO is the global association of more than 90 scientific member organizations.

(Photo: Siarhei Yurchanka |