The first stage of the Brain Preservation Prize is won — an entire rabbit brain preserved with its connectome intact.
In February 2016 the Brain Preservation Foundation awarded the Small Mammal phase of its Brain Preservation Prize to the cryobiology research company 21st Century Medicine, lead researcher Robert McIntyre (now Aurelia Song) and senior author Greg Fahy, for preserving an entire rabbit brain using Aldehyde-Stabilized Cryopreservation (ASC).
The submission was evaluated by the BPF's judging committee using 3D electron microscopy, which confirmed that synaptic connectivity was preserved across the whole brain to the standard required by the prize. The result narrowly preceded the whole-mouse-brain chemical-preservation work of Prof. Shawn Mikula's team at the Max Planck Institute (published in Nature Methods).
The Small Mammal win was the first stage of a two-stage competition. The same technique was later scaled to an entire pig brain, winning the Large Mammal Prize in 2018.