2 UCI Brain Researchers Honored
Two world-renowned brain researchers at UC Irvine have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors a scientist can achieve.
Officials announced Tuesday that honors went to James McGaugh, chairman of the department of psychobiology and director of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory; and Ricardo Miledi, a distinguished professor of psychobiology and founder of UCI’s Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology.
Miledi was elected as a foreign associate of the academy, an honor bestowed on researchers who are not U.S. citizens.
The academy, which has its Western headquarters at UCI, elected 60 new members and four foreign associates this year. Members total 1,573; foreign associates, 262. The academy was established by Congress in 1863 to advise the federal government on science and technology.
The honors are the latest of many for McGaugh and Miledi. McGaugh, former vice chancellor and executive vice chancellor at UCI, has studied the effects of drugs, hormones and electrical stimulation on memory storage. McGaugh has received the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Assn. and the UCI Extraordinarius Award.
In addition, McGaugh is the founding editor of the Journal of Behavioral and Neural Biology and has been on research committees for the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Research Council. He has also been a governor of the American Psychological Assn. and has been at UCI since the campus was founded in 1965.
Miledi, who came to UCI in 1984, is an expert on the physiology of synapses--the point at which messages are transmitted from one neuron to another--and the transmission of those messages to muscles. His research into how the brain processes information has led to treatments for nervous disorders including myasthenia gravis.
Miledi was named one of two winners of the $100,000 King Faisal International Prize for science and medicine last spring and has received the Luigi Galvani Medal for excellence in neuroscience research. He is also an honorary member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Born in Mexico, Miledi lived in England for 26 years and holds British citizenship.
