Dr. Kolassa received the DeGPT Award
Dr. Iris-Tatjana Kolassa received the DeGPT Award of the Falk-von-Reichenbach Foundation (German Society for Psychotraumatology) amounting to EUR 1.750. Dr. Kolassa was honored for three studies including “A deletion variant of the α2b-adrenoceptor is related to emotional memory in Europeans and Africans”. This collaborative project of Iris-Tatjana Kolassa with Prof. Dr. Dominique de Quervain (University of Zurich) resulted from the Mentorship Program sponsored by the Zukunftskolleg in 2006. The study examined the role of the α2b-adrenoceptor, a receptor for stress hormones, in the formation of emotional memories Dr. Kolassa showed that a deletion variant of the gene encoding this receptor was associated with better emotional memory in healthy Swiss subjects, but also with enhanced reexperiencing symptoms in the form of intrusive memories of the traumatic situation in survivors of the Rwandan civil war.