Geneticist Emiliana Borrelli receives prestigious honors

For more than 30 years as a researcher at INSERM – the French equivalent of the National Institutes of Health – and the UCI School of Medicine, Emiliana Borrelli has earned international recognition for her studies on the neurotransmitter dopamine and its role in brain diseases, movement disorders and addiction. This fall, the Chancellor’s Professor of microbiology & molecular genetics received her greatest accolades yet. In October, she was awarded the title of Knight in the National Order of the Légion d’Honneur, the most prestigious civilian honor given by the French government, during a ceremony held at the Los Angeles residence of the consul general of France, where she was praised for her remarkable career and work reinforcing the scientific partnership between France and the U.S. And in November, Borrelli accepted the Golgi Medal Award in Neuroscience from the Golgi Foundation at a ceremony in Brescia, Italy. Considered one of the top honors in the neurosciences, it’s bestowed once a year on a neuroscientist and an institution active in public health. Borrelli joined UCI in 2006 and has led the INSERM-UCI Research Unit, the only one of its kind outside Europe, since 2008. She’s also a member of UCI’s Center for Epigenetics & Metabolism.