PGMA receives Nobel winner for medicine in Malacañang
MANILA,
Feb. 2 (PNA) - President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Monday morning
received Nobel Laureate for Medicine, Prof. Torsten Wiesel, who is in
the country as part of the Bridges Program of the International Peace
Foundation.
Prof.
Wiesel was accompanied to Malacañang by Health Secretary Esperanza
Cabral and Uwe Morawetz, chairman of the Board of Directors of Bridges.
The
Bridges Program brings Nobel Laureates together in a dialogue intended
for the creation of a culture of peace and harmony in the global
community.
In
a short remark, the President said the visit came at an ideal time,
when the administration is conducting talks with the Muslim separatist
groups and with the Communist insurgency in an effort to create a
lasting and meaningful peace for the country.
Wiesel
was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1981 for his pioneering
work on the neural basis of visual perception, carried out in
collaboration with Professor David H. Hubel at the Harvard Medical
School.
Their
studies showed how visual information collected by the retina is
transmitted to and processed in the visual cortex of the brain. Their
experiments greatly expanded the scientific knowledge of sensory
processing and showed that ocular dominance develops irreversibly early
in childhood development.
These studies opened the door for the understanding and treatment of childhood cataracts and strabismus.
In
1998, Wiesel was elected president of the Paris-based International
Brain Research Organization. He has served since 2000 as secretary
general of the Human Frontier Science Program, an organization based in
Strasbourg, France. (PNA)
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