Winner 2021: Valery Grinevich, Germany

Valery Grinevich obtained his MD in 1992 (Kursk State Medical University, Russia) and PhD in 1996 (Russian Academy of Sciences, Saint-Petersburg). As a postdoc, he worked with leading experts in neuroendocrinology, such as Georges Pelletier and Ferdinand Labrie (Quebec), and Greti Aguilera (NIH) focusing on neuroendocrine mechanisms of the stress response. In 2003, he was appointed as a full Professor at the Russian State Medical University (Moscow), but, instead, joined the group of Peter H. Seeburg as a postdoc in the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research Heidelberg. In 2008, he established his group and in 2012 – the Independent Schaller Group on Neuropeptides in Heidelberg. During the last decade, his team deciphered a novel mechanism of neuropeptide signaling in the brain: axonal oxytocin release modulating brain region specific behaviors. His laboratory was supported by the Chica and Heinz Schaller Foundation, a number of German and European Agencies, and by the Human Frontier Science Program, in which he acted as a coordinator. In 2019 he has been promoted as Full University Professor (W3) and Chair of Department of Neuropeptide Research in Psychiatry at Central Institute of Mental Health of the Heidelberg University and Affiliate Professor at the Georgia State University, Atlanta, USA.

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