Huge congratulations to Véronique Gouverneur, Waynflete Professor of Chemistry at Magdalen, and Gero Miesenböck, Waynflete Professor of Physiology who were among the distinguished scholars from the University of Oxford elected this year as international members of the National Academy of Sciences.
Véronique is internationally renowned for her work in fluorine chemistry, leading to new techniques for drug development, diagnostics, and safer, more sustainable fluorochemical production. Her innovations include new methods for PET imaging and the first safe process to convert fluorspar without hazardous hydrogen fluoride – an achievement that led to the Oxford spinout FluoRok. She has received many international honours, including election to the Royal Society in 2019 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2022.
“I am thrilled to receive this recognition,” Véronique says. “and grateful to all members of my team who serve society through science. Becoming a member of the National Academy of Sciences is a privilege, and a superb opportunity to connect with a remarkable community.”
Professor Gero Miesenböck pioneered optogenetics, a revolutionary method for controlling nerve cells with light, transforming how we study the brain. His work has uncovered fundamental mechanisms of perception, emotion, and sleep, including the discovery that sleep pressure is linked to oxygen use in mitochondria. A Fellow of the Royal Society, he has received numerous international honours, including the Shaw, Horwitz, and Japan Prizes.
He said: “Beyond the immediate joy of being invited into the company of distinguished colleagues, it is nice to form a thread in the international fabric of science, especially with everything that’s going on right now.“
Congratulations to both of them for this amazing achievement.