On the sixth of February 2025, the Budapest University of Technology and Economics was also the scene of an important event for our Institute.

Erik Hrabovszky's group, with Soma Szentkirályi-Tóth and Balázs Göcz as first co-authors, published a paper in the prestigious Journal of Neuroscience, reporting their findings on the lateral septum, a brain region known as the lateral septum, which produces kisspeptin. The Working Group on Reproductive Neurobiology, which is reporting the paper, is working on the brain regulation of reproduction. Since "kiss" means kiss in Hungarian, the name kisspeptin is a good match for the role of the peptide in reproduction. But the reason for the name was quite different. 

Between 2005 and 2020, 17 of our staff have won the Academy's Youth Prize, which is a very impressive achievement. However, after Andris Szőnyi was honoured, there was a longer break until 21 February 2025. 

Susanne Prokop received the award with a certificate and a cash prize in the conference room of the MTA Library and Information Centre, and on behalf of our institute and its management, we would like to congratulate her! 

The facts don't change what we think about them, but our lives are very much influenced by what is generally accepted in the treatment of, for example, a disease. Millions of lives and quality of life are affected if experimental results and observations show that we need to think differently, that we need a paradigm shift. This is what is happening now with thyroid hormone, with the active involvement of Balázs Gereben and his team.

Their discovery was published in the journal PNAS.

The Reproductive Neurobiology research group led by Erik Hrabovszky has published a methodological breakthrough in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. We spoke to Eva Rumpler, who, along with Balázs Göcz, is the shared first author of the paper.