The 2026 Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize Lectures

Columbia University will award the 2026 Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize to Adrian Bird and Huda Zoghbi for their pioneering work on epigenetic regulation in the nervous system and its role in human neurological disease, particularly Rett syndrome. Each awardee will present a lecture on February 10, 2027. 

Lecture 1

presented by

Sir Adrian Bird, PhD

Sir Adrian Bird, PhD

Sir Adrian Bird, PhD

Buchanan Professor of Genetics at the University of Edinburgh

Wednesday, February 10, 2027 at 10 a.m.
The Lee C. Bollinger Forum at Columbia University
601 W. 125th St.

Biography

Sir Adrian Bird, PhD is the Buchanan Professor of Genetics at the University of Edinburgh, UK, a position he has held since 1990. Bird graduated with a degree in biochemistry from the University of Sussex in 1968 and and obtained his PhD at the University of Edinburgh. Following postdoctoral experience at Yale University and the University of Zurich, he joined the Medical Research Council’s Mammalian Genome Unit in Edinburgh. In 1987, he moved to Vienna to become a Senior Scientist at the Institute for Molecular Pathology. Bird later founded and directed the Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology at the University of Edinburgh from 1999 to 2011. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and was knighted in 2014 for services to science.

Lecture 2

presented by

Huda Zoghbi, MD

Distinguished Service Professor at Baylor College of Medicine 
Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute  
Director of the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children's Hospital  

Huda Zoghbi, MD

Huda Zoghbi, MD

Wednesday, February 10, 2027 at 2 p.m. 
Alumni Auditorium
650 W. 168th St., 1st Floor

Biography

Huda Zoghbi, MD, is a Distinguished Service Professor at Baylor College of Medicine, Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and founding Director of the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital. Zoghbi graduated from the American University of Beirut, received her medical degree from Meharry Medical College, and completed her residency and postdoctoral research training at Baylor College of Medicine. She has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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