Winner 2007 – E. Ron de Kloet

This year’s prize recognises contributions in basic science research. The Awardee, Professor E. Ron de Kloet, is currently the Head of the Department of Medical Pharmacology at the Leiden/Amsterdam Center for Drug Research.

Professor de Kloet has made pioneering basic research on the neuropsychopharmacology of stress hormones in health and in disease. He has pioneered the field by demonstrating how peripherally synthesized and released corticosteroids can regulate the activity of brain areas involved in mood-disorders and cognition. His discovery that stress-induced corticosteroids act on two different types of corticosteroid-receptors, the glucocorticoid and the mineralocorticoid receptor, has been fundamental for our current understanding of how the central nervous system can adapt to stressors. His current research aims at further understanding how the two corticosteroid-receptors regulate gene-transcription and its implication for early life, aging and human pathophysiology.

The Awardee is the author and co-author of more than 500 original research papers and an author of a number of books and book-chapters on various aspects of stress and psychopathology. He has been the receiving editor for the Journal of Neuroendocrinology and editor-in-chief and co-founder for the journal Stress. He has received a number of awards and distinctions including the Geoffrey Harris Prize awarded by the European Federation of Endocrine Societies. In 2004 Professor de Kloet has been appointed Academy Professor of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.