Silvia Arber facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Silvia Arber
MAE
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Silvia Arber in 2019
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| Born | 1968 (age 56–57) |
| Alma mater | University of Basel |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Neurobiology |
| Institutions | Columbia University Friedrich Miescher Institute Biozentrum University of Basel |
| Thesis | Activity-sensitive signaling at the neuromuscular junction (1995) |
Silvia Arber was born in 1968 in Geneva, Switzerland. She is a Swiss neurobiologist. This means she studies the brain and nervous system. She teaches and does research in Basel, Switzerland. She works at both the Biozentrum of the University of Basel and the Friedrich Miescher Institute.
Learning and Studying
Silvia Arber studied biology at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel. She finished her PhD in 1995. Her PhD research was done at the Friedrich Miescher Institute (FMI) in Basel.
Her Work and Discoveries
After her PhD, Dr. Arber worked as a researcher. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University in New York City. In 2000, she came back to Basel. She became a professor of Neurobiology and Cell Biology. She kept doing her research and teaching at the Biozentrum and the FMI.
Dr. Arber's research looks at how our bodies move. She studies the special pathways of nerve cells. These pathways control how we move. She found that different groups of nerve cells in the spinal cord work in unique ways. Their function depends on when they formed as we developed.
Since 2014, Silvia Arber has focused on the brain stem. This part of the brain sends signals for movement to the spinal cord. Her work showed that specific nerve cells connect in groups. These groups control different kinds of body movements. For example, moving your arm and hand uses different brain networks. Walking or standing upright use other networks.
She also helps guide the scientific journal Cell. She is a member of its Editorial Board.
Awards and Special Recognitions
Silvia Arber has received many awards for her important work:
- 1998: Pfizer Forschungspreis
- 2003: National Latsis Prize
- 2005: Elected to the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO)
- 2005: Schellenberg Prize
- 2008: Friedrich Miescher Award
- 2009: European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Investigators Grant
- 2014: Otto Naegeli Prize
- 2014: Elected to the Academia Europaea (MAE)
- 2017: Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine
- 2018: W. Alden Spencer Award
- 2018: Pradel Research Award
- 2019: Physiological Society Annual Review Prize Lecture
- 2020: Elected to the National Academy of Sciences of the United States
- 2022: The Brain Prize
Her Family
Silvia Arber's father is Werner Arber. He is also a famous Swiss scientist. He won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1978.
