Twenty two “exceptional, creative and inspiring people” were selected by the MacArthur Foundation for its highly-coveted Fellowships, often referred to as ‘Genius Awards.’
Among them are two Indian Americans, Nabarun Dasgupta, an epidemiologist and harm-reduction advocate; and Teresa Puthussery, a neurobiologist and optometrist.
Each of the Fellows receives $800,000 given in equal installments over five years, to pursue their research. The three main criteria for selecting the Fellows includes – 1. Exceptional creativity; 2. Promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishments which could be enabled by the award; and 3. Potential for the Fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work.
The awards are given directly to the individuals rather than through institutions with “no strings attached” which means the Foundation does not require or expect specific products or reports from MacArthur Fellows and does not evaluate recipients’ creativity during the term of the fellowship.
ADVERTISEMENT
The biographies provided by MacArthur Foundation describe the work and achievements of the Fellows:
Nabarun Dasgupta is an epidemiologist and harm reduction advocate creating practical programs to mitigate harms from drug use, particularly opioid overdose deaths. Dasgupta combines scientific studies with community engagement to improve the wellbeing and safety of people who use drugs and people living with debilitating pain.
Dasgupta collaborates with people who have experience with drug use or its consequences to design effective, evidence-based interventions that respond to the needs of people who use drugs and community-based organizations that support them.
Much of Dasgupta’s work focuses on broadening access to inexpensive or free naloxone, which reverses opioid overdose, for people who use drugs and their families and friends. In early work, he co-founded Project Lazarus, a nonprofit in rural Wilkes County, and partnered with the North Carolina Medical Board to enable direct distribution of naloxone to individuals with a doctor’s prescription. Project Lazarus’s efforts drastically reduced overdose deaths in the county. In 2020, Dasgupta and colleagues created a new naloxone supply and distribution model in Remedy Alliance/For The People. Dasgupta worked with the Food and Drug Administration to revise licensing requirements that had made it difficult for harm reduction organizations to access naloxone. Under the new agreement, their nonprofit acts as a wholesale distributor of naloxone. Remedy Alliance/For the People purchases naloxone directly from pharmaceutical companies and distributes it to harm reduction organizations at low or no cost, based on size and budget. They now supply naloxone to over 500 organizations across the country.
In another line of work, Dasgupta has developed a nationwide drug checking program for unregulated substances (that is, street drugs). He devised a collection mechanism that renders drug samples unusable but still testable, so samples can be legally sent through the mail. His Opioid Data Lab determines the ingredients and amounts in samples of drugs and then posts results anonymously on their website. Understanding what substances are in the drug supply, particularly dangerous or unknown ingredients, helps individuals make informed decisions about their drug use. It also allows community members and frontline medical responders to prepare proper care and overdose responses. Dasgupta and his team also harness the lab’s findings to conduct research on the broader U.S. drug supply and use trends. With compassion, collaboration, and creative vision, Dasgupta brings much-needed leadership to the critical work of understanding and reducing deaths and other harms from drug use.
A graduate from Princeton University, an MPH (2003) from Yale University, and a PhD (2013) from the University of North Carolina, Dasgupta has been a senior scientist since 2013 at University of North Carolina’s Injury Prevention Research Center, where he directs the Opioid Data Lab. In 2020, he was named an Innovation Fellow in the UNC Gillings School of Public Health. His work has been published in the American Journal of Public Health, PLoS One, The Lancet, Pain Medicine, and Drug Safety, among other leading scientific journals.
Teresa Puthussery is a neurobiologist and optometrist exploring how neural circuits of the retina encode visual information for the primate brain. Her research into retinal ganglion cells is filling a long-standing gap in knowledge about the human visual system. It also has implications for treating retinal neurodegenerative diseases such as glaucoma and macular degeneration.
Primates’ retinas convert images into electrical signals that can be interpreted by the brain. Retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) are the neural output pathway of the retina: they deliver the encoded images to the brain via the optic nerve. It is estimated that primate retinas contain at least 20 different types of RGCs, each of which transmits specific visual information, such as form, color, contrast, and motion. Because most cell types are sparsely represented in an individual retina, they are exceedingly difficult to study, and the specific functions of most primate RGC types are unknown. Drawing on her training in optometry, deep knowledge of eye anatomy, and facility with neuroscientific experimental techniques, Puthussery discovered direction-selective ganglion cells (DSGCs) in the primate retina. DSGCs detect the direction in which a visual scene is moving and prompt the eye to follow it, thereby maintaining a stable and clear image. They were first identified in the rabbit retina nearly 60 years ago. Research had not previously revealed DSGCs in primates, and scientists speculated that this complex visual feature was encoded in the primate brain, rather than in the retina. Puthussery laid this speculation to rest, identifying DSGCs in primate retinas through a novel combination of genetic, electrophysiological, and imaging technologies. She analyzed single-cell RNA sequencing data to find candidate cells and then used antibody staining, cell morphology analysis, and two-photon calcium imaging to confirm and measure the cells’ functional properties. Puthussery’s approach is more robust than previous methods used to characterize RGCs and will enable determination of the structure and function of other types of RGCs.
In another line of work, Puthussery is investigating how retinal neurons are affected by photoreceptor degeneration. She is also working with collaborators to assess whether stem cell–derived photoreceptors can be used to restore vision in diseases that cause photoreceptor loss, such as age-related macular degeneration. Puthussery’s insights into the complex circuitry of the primate retina are laying the foundation for a more complete understanding of human vision and for treatments of debilitating eye diseases.
Puthussery received a BS (2000), a PhD (2005), and a postgraduate degree (2006) from the University of Melbourne, Australia. She was a postdoctoral research fellow and assistant research professor at Oregon Health and Science University prior to joining the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is an associate professor in the Herbert Wertheim School of Optometry and Vision Science. Puthussery’s research has been published in Nature, Cell Reports, and the Journal of Neuroscience, among other leading journals.