Rewrite Carmen Sandi’s research contributions to the neurobiology of stress and anxiety recognised by the 2025 ECNP Neuropsychopharmacology Award this news headline for the science magazine post

The European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) is pleased to announce Professor Carmen Sandi as the recipient of the 2025 ECNP Neuropsychopharmacology Award
(preclinical), in recognition of her achievements in advancing the understanding of the neurobiological mechanisms of stress and anxiety and their impacts on brain and behaviour.The ECNP Neuropsychopharmacology Award is presented annually and recognises distinguished research in applied and translational neuroscience.

One of Europe’s leading stress researchers, Carmen Sandi is a professor of neuroscience at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) and director of the Laboratory of Behavioural Genetics at the EPFL’s Brain Mind Institute.

Drawing upon a wide range of disciplinary approaches, from pharmacology to electrophysiology, neurochemistry, genetics, behavioural economics, and experimental psychology, combined with the innovative use of techniques such as neuroimaging, she has produced a remarkable record of research achievements connecting brain mechanisms (glucocorticoids, cell adhesion molecules, glutamate receptors) with the key functional effects of stress and anxiety on cognition, including learning, memory and behaviour.

More recent work has focused on the mesolimbic system and the role of mitochondrial function in effort-based motivated behaviour, as well as the role of glucocorticoids in determining different neurodevelopmental trajectories following exposure to early life adversity. As ever, the goal is therapeutically oriented: to understand how early life stress affects behavioural programming and enhances the risk of developing psychopathologies such as sociability deficits and pathological aggression.

Carmen Sandi has served as the director of the EPFL Brain Mind Institute (2012-19), the president of the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS, 2018-20), and the president of the Cajal Advanced Neuroscience Training Programme (2019-20). She is a founder and former chair of the ALBA Network (2018-21), former president of the European Brain and Behaviour Society (EBBS, 2009-11), and co-founder and current co-president of the Global Stress and Resilience Network (GSRNet). She has also received a number of national mand international awards, including the first Ron de Kloet Prize for Stress Research (2018), the John Scott Lifetime Award for Aggression Research (2020), and the Distinguished Investigator Award by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF, 2024). She was awarded the Valkhof Chair at Radboud University (2015), a Distinguished Visiting Scientist position at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (2015), and a sabbatical professor at Rockefeller University in New York (2016). She was also the founding editor-in-chief of Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience (2007-14) and serves on the editorial boards of a variety of the field’s leading 2 journals and institutional boards. She was a member of the Wellcome Science Panel (2019- 21), served as panel leader for UK MQ Mental Health (2015-17), and was panel leader (2010-15) and chair (2022-24) for the European Research Council (ERC) Grants Panel LS5.

In announcing the award, ECNP Award Committee chair Eduard Vieta, Spain, said, “Carmen Sandi is translational neuroscientist in the truest sense. Not only is her work a model of integrative research, from rodents into humans, she is acutely conscious of the human cost of stress and anxiety and the necessity of real-world solutions for these disorders. We congratulate her on this award!”

Carmen Sandi will receive the award during the 38th ECNP Congress on 11-14 October 2025 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The award is accompanied by an invitation to present a plenary
lecture at the 38th ECNP Congress, which is scheduled for Monday 13 October at 10.15 -11.00.

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The ECNP Neuropsychopharmacology Award recognises innovative and distinguished research achievements in applied and translational neuroscience. The award is granted each year, alternating between basic science and clinical research. The award carries a prize of €10,000, which accompanies the winner’s review article in European Neuropsychopharmacology.

ECNP is an independent scientific association whose mission is to advance the science of the brain, promote better treatment and enhance brain health. The annual ECNP Congress attracts some 7,000 scientists and clinicians from across the world to discuss the latest advances in brain research in Europe’s largest meeting on brain science. More information about ECNP, its aims and activities, can be found at www.ecnp.eu.

More information on the ECNP Neuropsychopharmacology Award can be found at: www.ecnp.eu/ena-award.