Gioele La Manno has won the 2026 Eppendorf & Science Prize for Neurobiology for his innovative experiments that have uncovered intricate layers of organization in the brain's lipids – and have deciphered how these fatty molecules shape the diversity of brain cells. Neuroscientists know that lipids are essential components of neurons, but tended to view these molecules merely as passive building blocks. "The assumption was that they only matter in the way an apartment's concrete walls do—structurally essential, yet blank, repetitive, and, in a sense, boring," La Manno writes in his prize essay. However, La Manno's work has demonstrated that lipids are far from just boring construction materials, but are also key molecular players in their own right that influence the identity of nerve cells. Throughout his career, La Manno has combined imaging methods such as mass spectrometry with computational techniques to map the distribution of lipids throughout the brain in adult mice. These studies produced a comprehensive atlas that revealed a surprising level of detail in how lipids are organized, identifying 539 distinct territories that the researchers termed "lipizones." La Manno also applied his findings to examine the brain's lipidome during pregnancy and observed that dozens of lipizones shifted in concert in the brain's white matter and cortex. "A map this complete lets us ask questions that had been impossible before," he writes. "The Lipid Brain Atlas opens a new line of inquiry into brain organization, one we have only begun to explore."
The two prize finalists this year were Alexander Bates for his essay, "Darwin's atom split: A whole central nervous system is exposed," and Zuri Sillivan for her essay, "Immunity at scale: The brain as a host defense effector."
