Botond Roska named recipient of the Perl–UNC Neuroscience Prize

The University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine has awarded the esteemed 24th Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize to Botond Roska, MD, PhD, a medical doctor, biomedical researcher at the University of Basel in Switzerland, and the Director of the university’s Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology. He is receiving the prize for “developing approaches to decode retinal circuitry and restore vision.”

Roska will visit the UNC at Chapel Hill on March 5, 2026, to receive the prize, a $20,000 award, and give a lecture on his work at the UNC School of Medicine.

“I am deeply honored to receive the Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize,” said Botond Roska, MD, PhD. “This prestigious award helps to draw attention to the major unmet medical need of visual impairment and to the promise that understanding neuronal circuits, together with new technologies, can offer hope to blind patients for restoring vision.”

Born in Hungary, Roska studied the cello at Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest before pursuing a degree in mathematics from Eötvös Loránd University. He graduated summa cum laude with an MD from Semmelweis University and completed a PhD in Neurobiology with focus on electrophysiology of the mammalian retina at the University of California, Berkeley.

Roska’s lab at the Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel (IOB) is dedicated to decoding the retina’s intricate wiring and finding ways to either repair or replace it.

The research team focuses on identifying the different cell types in the retina and mapping how they interact to transmit signals to the brain. They also investigate what happens when these circuits break down in conditions like retinitis pigmentosa or age-related macular degeneration, which are leading causes of blindness worldwide. The team is also advancing precision gene therapies that target specific retinal cells, offering hope for treating inherited eye diseases.

“Dr. Roska’s groundbreaking research revolutionized our understanding of neuronal networks in the eye, laying the foundation for innovative therapies against blindness,” said Mark Zylka, PhD, Director of the UNC Neuroscience Center and chair of the Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize committee. “By harnessing optogenetics to render surviving retinal neurons light-sensitive, he and his colleagues achieved the first human proof-of-concept for treating degenerative eye diseases, offering hope to millions worldwide.”

One of Roska’s most groundbreaking achievements is optogenetic therapy, which uses light-sensitive proteins to reactivate dormant retinal cells. This approach has already helped a blind patient partially regain sight. In addition to the Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize, Roska’s contributions to neuroscience and vision restoration have led to many other awards, including the 2024 Wolf Prize in Medicine and the 2019 Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine.

About the Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize

The Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize, established in 2000, is named after former UNC professor Edward Perl, MD, who discovered that a specific type of sensory neuron responded to painful stimuli and was the first president of the Society for Neuroscience. Dr. Perl passed away in 2014.

The prize recognizes researchers for outstanding discoveries and seminal insights in the broad field of neuroscience, while celebrating the strength of the neuroscience research program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Six of its previous winners have gone on to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine or the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Five awardees subsequently won the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences. Three other Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize recipients have gone on to win the Kavli Prize.