On September 2nd, 2010, Professor Armen Stepanyants was among a handful of scientists to receive a grand prize in the DIADEM challenge, an international scientific contest launched in April 2009 and organized by the Allen Institute for Brain Science, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), and the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University. To merit a grand prize, a successful computational approach should accurately trace neuronal morphology at least 20 times faster than scientists could accomplish the same task by hand. The jury awarded a grand prize to Professor Stepanyants “for the better overall biological results in the spirit of pure automation.”
