8 scientists share lucrative Kavli Prizes
June 3, 2010 The biennial Kavli Prizes honor research in three categories:
astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience. This year's winners
were announced at a ceremony in Oslo, which was simultaneously
broadcast at the World Science Festival in New York.
The 2010 awards recognize innovations in telescope design,
research into the chemistry behind brain activity and breakthroughs
in the study of minuscule materials and molecule-sized structures,
the Norwegian prize officials said.
The award for astrophysics was shared by American Jerry Nelson
of the University of California, Santa Cruz; British scientist
Raymond Wilson of the European Southern Observatory and formerly of
Imperial College London; and Roger Angel of the University of
Arizona. Angel has British and U.S. citizenship.
Working separately, Nelson and Angel improved the structure of
telescopes, making them more powerful and allowing them to provide
higher-resolution images. Wilson's work also helped astronomers
gaze further into space by using computers to correct for the
distorting effects of gravity, wind and temperature on telescopes.
The neuroscience prize was awarded to German Thomas Suedhof of
Stanford University and Americans Richard Scheller of the
biotechnology company Genentech and James Rothman of Yale
University.
Suedhof and Scheller both discovered genes that govern the way
nerve cells in the brain communicate. Rothman showed how vesicles -
tiny sacks that shuttle molecules within cells - are directed to
specific parts of brain cells to control brain function, hormone
release and a host of other activities.
Americans Nadrian Seeman of New York University and Donald
Eigler of IBM's Almaden Research Center won the nanoscience prize,
which honors research on exceedingly tiny materials and structures
often smaller than a single human cell.
"Feels great. What can I say?" Seeman, 64, said in a phone
interview from the World Science Festival.
"It means recognition for a field in which there are a lot of
people, most of them a lot younger than me, participating," he
said.
Seeman discovered that DNA - the genetic material of living
creatures - could be used to construct an assortment of
molecule-sized devices and machines. In a recent study published in
the science journal "Nature," Seeman and others showed how they
built from DNA a functioning assembly line of molecular robots.
In 1989, Eigler became the first person to succeed at moving
precisely an individual atom from one place to another. He then
made "a series of breakthroughs that have helped us to understand
some of the most basic units of matter," the citation said.
The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters awards the prizes
in partnership with the Kavli Foundation and Norway's Ministry of
Education and Research. The awards carry a $1 million purse apiece.
The winners are selected by leading scientists in each field.
First awarded in 2008, the prizes are named after their founder,
Norwegian entrepreneur and philanthropist Fred Kavli. He moved to
the U.S. in 1956 and became the CEO of Kavlico Corp., one of the
world's largest suppliers of sensors for aeronautics, automotive
and industrial uses. He sold the company in 2000 and used the
profit to found the California-based Kavli Foundation.
