22 Facts About Torsten Wiesel

Torsten Nils Wiesel was born on 3 June 1924 and is a Swedish neurophysiologist.

Torsten Wiesel went on to teach in the institute's department of physiology and worked in the child psychiatry unit of the Karolinska Hospital.

Torsten Wiesel began a fellowship in ophthalmology, and in 1958 he became an assistant professor.

Torsten Wiesel became an instructor in pharmacology at Harvard Medical School, beginning a 24-year career with the university.

Torsten Wiesel became professor in the new department of neurobiology in 1968 and its chair in 1973.

In 1983, Torsten Wiesel joined the faculty of Rockefeller University as Vincent and Brooke Astor Professor and head of the Laboratory of Neurobiology.

Torsten Wiesel was president of the university from 1991 to 1998.

From 2000 to 2009, Torsten Wiesel served as Secretary-General of the Human Frontier Science Program, an organization headquartered in Strasbourg, France, which supports international and interdisciplinary collaboration between investigators in the life sciences.

Torsten Wiesel has chaired 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 of Science and Technology.

Torsten Wiesel is 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.

Torsten Wiesel has served as chair of the board of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, president of the Society for Neuroscience, and the International Brain Research Organization.

Hubel and Torsten Wiesel were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1981 for their work on ocular dominance columns in the 1960s and 1970s.

Hubel and Torsten Wiesel's experiments showed that the ocular dominance develops irreversibly early in childhood development.

Torsten Wiesel is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and a foreign fellow of the Indian National Science Academy.

In 2001, Torsten Wiesel was nominated for a position on an advisory panel in the National Institutes of Health to advise on assisting research in developing countries.

Torsten Wiesel was among the eight 2005 recipients of the National Medal of Science.

Torsten Wiesel was married to Teeri Stenhammar from 1956 to 1970, Ann Yee from 1973 to 1981, and author and editor Jean Stein from 1995 to 2007.

Torsten Wiesel has done much work as a global human rights advocate.

Torsten Wiesel served for 10 years as chair of the Committee of Human Rights of the National Academies of Science in the US, as well as the International Human Rights Network of Academies and Scholarly Societies.

Torsten Wiesel was awarded the David Rall Medal from the Institute of Medicine in 2005, in recognition of this important work.

In 2009, Torsten Wiesel was awarded the Grand Cordon Order of the Rising Sun Medal in Japan.

Torsten Wiesel is a founding member of the Israeli-Palestinian Science Organization, a nongovernmental nonprofit established in 2004 to support collaborative research between scientists in Israel and Palestine.