Christine Petit receives the 2020 Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize

The Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize is a scientific prize awarded every year since 1967 by Columbia University to a researcher or a group of researchers recognized as having made an outstanding contribution to basic research in the fields of biology or biochemistry.

The Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize was established under the will of the late S. Gross Horwitz through a bequest to Columbia University. It is named after the donor's mother, Louisa Gross Horwitz, the daughter of Dr. Samuel David Gross (1805-89), an eminent Philadelphia surgeon who served as President of the American Medical Association and penned the book Systems of Surgery. Of the 103 Horwitz Prize laureates to date, 51 have received Nobel Prizes.

This year, the prize was awarded to three internationally renowned scientists, who previously jointly received the 2018 Kavli Prize for Neuroscience, for their discovery of how the ear and the brain work together to process sound: Christine Petit (Professor at the Institut Pasteur and Professor at the Collège de France), A. James Hudspeth (The Rockefeller University, USA) and Robert Fettiplace (University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA).

Christine Petit has identified several groups of genes that play key roles in hearing, bridging the gap between basic science and medicine. Working with families affected by inherited hearing loss, she has uncovered over 20 genes that cause deafness when altered. Petit’s research on the function of these genes has provided valuable insights into how hearing loss occurs at the molecular level, opening a pathway for developing innovative therapies.

The lectures usually given by the recipients of the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize will take place remotely this year. Dr. Fettiplace and Dr. Hudspeth will give their lectures on November 24, and Christine Petit's lecture about “Tracing the Road from the Genetic Dissection of Auditory Molecular Mechanisms to Hearing Restoration” will take place on January 28, 2021.

Find out more about the 2020 Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize