The Flerkó-Bárdos Memorial Medal was awarded for the first time in 2019, and its first winner was Csaba Fekete. The following year, Krisztina Kovács received the medal, and since then we have had a winner every year. This year, there are three: László Biró, Petra Mohácsik, and Éva Rumpler received special awards in the Junior category.
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.
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.
All scientific results must be made public. Anyone who develops a method in the course of his own research inevitably realizes that it could be of value to others, too. Erik Hrabovszky's group has developed a new RNA sequencing method, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, a true classic that has maintained its reputation and prestige for almost 120 years.
The high quality of endocrinological research at our institute is reflected by the fact that Erik Hrabovszky is the third member of our staff to receive the prestigious Flerkó-Bárdos Memorial Medal in the senior category.
The importance of an award can be overestimated or underestimated, but if several people from the same group win awards, it cannot be a coincidence. This year, Balázs Göcz won the Hungarian Endocrinology and Metabolism Society's Youth Award as the first author of a PNAS article.
Erik Hrabovszky and Katalin Skrapits were invited by the French researcher leading the project to join the international team investigating a rare but serious congenital disorder. Their results offer hope for its treatment.
It is well known that women tend to console themselves with a piece of chocolate. The work of Erik Hrabovszky and his team could help to find a cure for infertility, the biggest sorrow for many women, by unravelling the role of a peptid named after a chocolate.