October 2025. Cheng Lyu, PhD., Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University, California, USA, wins the Eppendorf & Science Prize for Neurobiology for his work on rewiring the olfactory neural circuit in fruit flies.

“Cheng Lyu’s winning essay describes the molecular mechanisms how olfactory receptor neurons choose one synaptic partner out of all potential candidates” said Peter Stern, Senior Editor at SCIENCE and Prize Jury Chair. “These results provide a profound understanding of the principles of neural circuit assembly.”

“We found that the fly olfactory neural circuit builds its three-dimensional structure by breaking the developmental task into a series of one-dimensional steps”, says Lyu. “By manipulating this process, we rewired the neural circuit and altered the animal’s courtship behavior.”

These findings link genetic variation, through circuit assembly, to animal behavior, paving the way to explore how developmental changes influence brain function.

Two finalists are also recognized. Constanze Depp, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, for examining the role of myelin and oligodendrocytes in Alzheimer’s disease, and Sara Mederos, Ph.D., Wellcome Early Career Fellow at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre, London, United Kingdom, for revealing how the brain learns to adapt fear responses and be able to suppress them.

The prize will be presented on November 16, 2025 in San Diego, USA, during the week of the Society for Neuroscience.