Two Cambridge researchers awarded the Kavli Prize

Honouring groundbreaking scientific discovery, the recipients of the Kavli Prizes 2026 in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience were announced today by The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. The laureates in each field will share $1 million USD. They will be awarded The Kavli Prize in Oslo in September.

Vasily Belokurov, from Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy, has been jointly awarded the 2026 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics with Amina Helmi from the University of Groningen and Rodrigo Ibata from the University of Strasbourg “for uncovering the fossil evidence of past mergers proving that the Milky Way galaxy was built through hierarchical accretion.”

Belokurov, Helmi and Ibata used precise measurements of stars' movement through space to chart the evolution of the Milky Way. They have confirmed that our galaxy has grown over the course of billions of years by eating up or merging with other galaxies nearby.

This type of growth is ‘hierarchical’ in that galaxies start off small and then get ever larger by sucking in stars from other galaxies. The prize winners have used detailed observations from both ground- and space-based telescopes to track the motion of many stars and work out which ones are moving together. By tracing that motion back in time, they have been able to work out where the stars came from and whether they hail from galaxies that have merged with or been consumed by ours.

Christine Holt is Professor Emerita in the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience and a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College. She has been jointly awarded the 2026 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience, with Kelsey Martin from the Simons Foundation, Erin Schuman from the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research and Oswald Steward from the University of California Irvine, “for the discovery of local protein translation in neurons and establishing its importance for brain development and plasticity.”

Scientists long struggled to explain how the human brain can be so efficient – we can ultimately learn things in mere minutes. The proteins needed to enable the process in brain cells simply take too long to travel from the body of the brain cell, the neuron, to where the synapses – tiny junctions between neurons that allow them to communicate with each other or other cells – actually happen. But research spanning decades by this year’s laureates – Oswald Steward, Erin Schuman, Kelsey Martin and Christine Holt – has solved the mystery. Rather than the proteins being created in the cell body, as was previously thought, they can be produced directly on site close to where the all-important synapses happen; in the branches of the neurons appendages, called dendrites and axons. The discovery has led to a new understanding of how the brain works – and offers insights into how this process goes wrong in a range of brain disorders.

“Honouring these excellent scientists is not only a recognition of achievements, it is an investment in our shared future, affirming the curiosity, rigour, and courage that drive human progress,” said Annelin Eriksen, President of The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. “The recipients of the Kavli Prize represent what is best in the scientific enterprise. Their work builds on one another, deepens our understanding of ourselves and the world we live in, and creates new opportunities for the next generation of theoreticians, investigators and inventors. The science honoured today is already helping to lay the groundwork for a world of new opportunities in medicine, technology and our understanding of the universe.”