Adam Cohen receives 2014 Blavatnik Award
Adam Cohen, professor of chemistry and chemical biology and of physics, has been named one of three winners of the 2014 Blavatnik National Awards, which honor young scientists and engineers who have demonstrated important insights in their respective fields and who show exceptional promise going forward. Cohen’s research is centered on developing new methods for investigating molecules and cells, and ranges across disciples from pure biology to quantum mechanics. Much of his current work uses microscopy and lasers to develop noninvasive methods of visualizing and studying neural circuits in the brain. This new technique will help answer questions about how electrical signals propagate and one day could lead to the design of individualized treatments for diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), epilepsy, and bipolar disorders. Cohen is also responsible for the discovery of a new property of electromagnetic fields — optical chirality, which determines the degree of chiral selectivity in the interaction...