The International Peace Foundation

Prof. Torsten Nils Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1981 in recognition of his pioneering work on the neural basis of visual perception, carried out at Harvard Medical School in collaboration with Prof. David H. Hubel. 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 the ocular dominance develops irreversibly early in childhood development. These studies opened the door for the understanding and treatment of childhood cataracts and strabismus. They were also important in the study of cortical plasticity.

Born in Uppsala, Sweden, Torsten N. Wiesel began his scientific career in Carl Gustav Bernhard's laboratory at the Karolinska Institute, where he received his medical degree in 1954. He went on to teach in the Institute's department of physiology and worked in the child psychiatry unit of the Karolinska Hospital. In 1955 he moved to the United States to work at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine under Stephen Kuffler. Torsten Wiesel began a fellowship in ophthalmology, and in 1958 he became an assistant professor. That same year he met David Hubel, beginning a collaboration that would last over twenty years. In 1959 Torsten Wiesel moved to Harvard University where he became an instructor in pharmacology at Harvard Medical School, beginning a 24-year career with the university. He became professor in the new department of neurobiology in 1968 and its chair in 1971.

In 1983 Professor Wiesel joined the faculty of Rockefeller University as Vincent and Brooke Astor Professor and head of the Laboratory of Neurobiology. Under his leadership as president of the university from 1991 to 1998 thirty new laboratories conducting vanguard research in key areas of biology, chemistry and physics were established. He remains the university’s director of the Shelby White and Leon Levy Center for Mind, Brain and Behavior.

In 1998 Professor Wiesel was elected president of the International Brain Research Organization. From 2000-2009 he served as Secretary-General of the Human Frontier Science Program which supports international and interdisciplinary collaboration between investigators in the life sciences. Professor Wiesel also currently chairs the scientific advisory board of China's National Institute of Biological Science in Beijing and co-chairs the board of governors of the Okinawa Institute on Technology. He is also member of the boards of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, the Hospital for Special Surgery and an advisory board member of the European Brain Research Institute.

Professor Wiesel has served as chair of the board of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center (1995-2001), president of the International Brain Research Organization (1998-2004), chair of the board of governors of the New York Academy of Sciences (2001-2006) and member of the board of directors of the Population Council (1999-2008).

In 2007 the Torsten Wiesel Research Institute was established in Chengdu, China, by the World Eye Organization at West China Hospital, Sichuan University, to engage in basic and clinical research, especially on eye diseases most prevalent in Asia.

Professor Wiesel is the recipient of the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University (1978), of the David Rall Medal from the Institute of Medicine (2005) and of the National Medal of Science (2005), the United States’ highest honor for scientific achievement. In 2006 he was awarded the Ramon Y Cajal Gold Medal from the Spanish National Research Council. In 2007 both Professors Wiesel and Hubel were awarded the Marshall M. Parks MD Medal of Excellence from The Children's Eye Foundation.

Professor Wiesel has done much work as a global human rights advocate. He served for 10 years (1994-2004) as chair of the committee on human rights of the National Academy of Sciences (USA). He is a founding member of the International Human Rights Network of Academies and Scholarly Societies, assisting colleagues who have been imprisoned or harassed for their peaceful opposition to the policies of their governments. He is also a founding member of the Israeli-Palestinian Science Organization, a non-governmental non-profit established in 2004 to support collaborative research between scientists in Israel and Palestine.

Professor Wiesel is a member of many distinguished societies including the Royal Society, the National Academy of Sciences, the Philosophical Society, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Professor Wiesel is a member of many distinguished societies including the Royal Society, the National Academy of Sciences, the Philosophical Society, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.