The award was presented by Janssen, of Janssen Pharmaceuticals. At the presentation ceremony, Grace was personally congratulated by the queen of Belgium. Grace's research explores the effects of antipsychotic drugs on the body's dopamine systems and the prefrontal cortex of the brain.
Excess dopamine is known to be a feature of schizophrenia.
Edward Stricker, chairman of Pitt's Department of Neuroscience, said that, as one of Pitt's most prominent researchers, Grace richly deserves the award. This is a very prestigious award given for distinguished research on the biological basis of schizophrenia. Stricker's point about Grace's contributions to scientific literature is supported by the Institute for Scientific Information, which recently noted that one of Grace's papers on the dopamine system was one of the 10 most frequently cited articles on schizophrenia in the 1990s. Grace has been a faculty member at Pitt since 1985. He earned his Ph.D. in pharmacology from Yale University and completed post-doctoral training at New York University.