Epilepsia® Prize 2007

Zita Gajda

ILAE awards a new annual prize of 10,000 euros for the best paper published in Epilepsia during the previous calendar year.

Dr. Zita Gajda Awarded Inaugural Prize

The inaugural Morris-Coole Prize was awarded to Dr. Zita Gajda at the 2007 International Epilepsy Congress in Singapore for her Epilepsiapaper “The functional significance of gap junction channels in the epileptogenicity and seizure susceptibility of juvenile rats” (47:1009-1022, 2006).  In her study she induced focal cortical seizure activity in young rats at specific developmental points and observed the effects that gap junction openers and blockers had on the seizures.  She and her colleagues found that gap junctions could significantly influence the nature of the seizure as well as the overall seizure susceptibility in an age dependent manner.  She performed these studies as part of her Ph.D. studies under the direction of Professor Magdolna Szente at the University of Szeged, Hungary. 

About the Morris-Coole Prize

The Morris-Coole Prize is a new annual ILAE award that is given in recognition of an outstanding research paper published in Epilepsia the previous year on any field of epilepsy research, either clinical or basic.  The prize was established through the generosity of  Christopher and Sandra Morris-Coole with the intention of stimulating excellence in epilepsy research as well as rewarding young researchers for outstanding contributions to the field.  Award winners receive 10,000 euros and present the Morris-Coole lecture at a major epilepsy  meeting (at the International Epilepsy Congress during the years it is held). 

Papers are nominated to the selection committee by the associate editors of Epilepsia from among the papers that were published in the journal the previous year.  This year’s Prize winner was chosen from among 14 nominations that were deemed deserving of special recognition by the associate editors. 

The Judging panel will comprise the President of the ILAE and the two Editors-in-Chief of Epilepsia, and the panel will consider a short-list of papers prepared by the Associate Editors of Epilepsia. The prize will be awarded during the opening ceremony of the International or regional ILAE conference. The winning researchers will also be invited to present their findings at the Morris-Coole lecture at the conference.