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Sydney Brenner received bachelor’s degrees in Biochemistry, Medicine, and Surgery, an M.Sc. in cell genetics at Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, and a Ph.D. at Oxford University, U.K. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal College of Physicians, and the Royal College of Pathologists.

He spent most of his career working with the Medical Research Council (MRC) and became a Director of the MRC Molecular Genetics Laboratory in Cambridge, England, an Honorary Professor of Medical Genetics at Cambridge University, and a Visiting Professor at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine in London.

Professor Brenner was a giant of molecular biology. His distinguished scientific achievements over the past 40 years were pivotal in the development of modern concepts of molecular genetics and biology. His early work includes pioneering research on the structural identity of complex bacteriophages, mechanisms of chemical mutagenesis, characterization of chain-termination triplets and demonstration of the colinearity between a gene and its protein. However, his most significant earlier achievement was the establishment in the 1960s of the existence of messenger RNA and the proof that new mRNA molecules programmed pre-existing ribosomes to make new proteins. With the advent of cloning and sequencing of DNA, Brenner turned his attention to the direct study of genes and genomes, and initiated important molecular research based on the analysis of muscle genes of multicellular organisms. Using the tiny nematode Caenorhabditis elegans as a novel experimental model organism, he was able to link genetic analysis to cell division, differentiation, organ development and programmed cell death.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Raymond U. Lemieux obtained a B.Sc. (Honors) in chemistry from the University of Alberta and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from McGill University, followed by a postdoctoral scholarship at Ohio State University, where he conducted research on the structure of streptomycin.

After his return to Canada, he briefly held a research position at the University of Saskatchewan before moving to the National Research Council’s Prairie Regional Laboratory in Saskatoon as a senior research officer in 1949, where he completed the first chemical synthesis of sucrose. In 1954, he joined the University of Ottawa, where he established the Department of Chemistry and helped establish the Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences. During his tenure in Ottawa, he pioneered the application of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to the structure elucidation of natural products. In 1961, he moved to the University of Alberta in Edmonton, where his research focused on the special bonding properties termed “anomeric effects” and how these controlled the chemical reactions and shapes of carbohydrate molecules. This work led to the first chemical syntheses of the complex carbohydrates found on human cell surfaces (e.g., antigenic determinants of blood groups and subgroups) and to an understanding of how the shapes of these molecules control their function. He also developed ways to produce semi-synthetic antibodies, rubber-related compounds and heavy water. Upon his retirement in 1985, he became a Professor Emeritus at the University of Alberta.

He received numerous awards, including the Izaak Walton Killam Award, Canadian Medical Association Medal of Honor, and the Gairdner Foundation International Award.

In 1990, the American Chemical Society published his memoirs titled: Explorations with Sugars: How Sweet it Was.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Mustafa Amr El-Sayed received his B.Sc. from Ain Shams University in Cairo in 1953 and a Ph.D. from Florida State University in 1959. After completing his doctorate degree, he held fellowships at Harvard and Yale Universities and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) before joining the University of California, Los Angeles (1961-1994), where he became a Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry. He was a Visiting Professor at the American University in Beirut and the University of Southern France. He is also currently a Member at Large, Vice-Chairman, and Chairman of the Physical Chemistry Division of the International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry.

Professor El-Sayed is a leading nano-scientist and physical chemist, and also known for the spectroscopy rule named after him, the “El-Sayed Rule.” His group made seminal contributions to physical and material chemistry research, including the use of steady and ultra-fast laser spectroscopy to elucidate reaction kinetics and specificities in complex chemical systems relevant to life processes, such as energy conversion and transfer, photosynthesis, photochemistry, and physico-chemical cycles undergone by the bacteriorhodopsin. They also developed several new spectroscopic techniques and are currently focusing on studying the physical and chemical properties of noble metal nanoparticles and their applications in nanocatalysis, nanophotonic and nanomedicine. El-Sayed’s laboratory is known for developing the gold nanorod technology. He published more than 500 scientific papers and supervised the research of over 35 Ph.D. students, 26 postdoctoral fellows and 13 visiting professors.

He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the US Academy of Science, the Third World Academy of Science, the American Chemical Society, the American Physical Society, and the Advisory Committee for the Chemistry Division of the National Science Foundation. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Physical Chemistry and the International Reviews of Physical Chemistry.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Frank Albert Cotton received his BA in Chemistry from Temple University in 1951 and a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1955. He began teaching at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1955 and became full professor within merely six years. In 1972, he moved to Texas A&M University as the Robert A. Welch Professor of Chemistry and was later appointed as a Doherty-Welsh Distinguished Professor of Chemistry in 1984. He was also the Director of the Laboratory for Molecular Structure and Bonding at Texas A&M.

Professor Cotton was one of the world’s pre-eminent chemists. Both the quantity and the significance of his research were prodigious. He demonstrated an exceptional mastery of preparative chemistry, particularly in the fields of inorganic and organometallic chemistry. He discovered many new classes of compounds and the methods for preparing them. He also made seminal research on metal metal bonds, particularly quadruple and other multiple bonds; his work in this field is asserted to have “transformed our understanding of how the chemistry of about half the periodic table really works.” Cotton’s research resulted in more than 1000 scientific articles, authorship of many popular books that were translated into several other languages and the training of 80 Ph.D. students and 120 postdoctoral associates. Two of his books, Advanced Inorganic Chemistry and Chemical Applications of Group Theory, became some of the most widely used books in the field. The former book, which was co-authored with Sir Goeffrey Wilkinson, was first published in 1961 and is now in its 6th edition (with two additional co-authors); it incorporates more than 4000 references to literature and is considered like a bible of inorganic chemistry. The second book, first published in 1963, did the magic of introducing generations of chemists to group theory and its applications in the analysis of bonding and spectroscopy. Professor Cotton also founded the important annual series Progress in Inorganic Chemistry and edited its first 10 volumes. He also chronicled metal-metal bonding in his book, Multiple Bonds Between Metal Atoms (jointly with R. A. Watson).

Professor Cotton was honored with many prestigious medals, awards, honorary doctorate degrees, fellowships and editorships. Among his most distinguished awards was the United States’ highest scientific award, the National Medal of Science.

Professor Cotton was a world leader in the area of organometallic chemistry, metal carbonyl chemistry and metal atom cluster species. Through his pioneering work on multiple bonds between metal atoms, he has opened a new chapter in inorganic chemistry.

He had also been one of the most prolific contributors to scientific literature with over 1000 publications and several textbooks to his name.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Theodor Wolfgang Hansch received a Diploma in Physics in 1966 and a Doctorate degree in the same field in 1969 from the University of Heidelberg, where he served as an assistant professor from 1969 to 1970. Then, he moved to the USA and served as a Professor of Physics at Stanford University(1975-1986), where he became increasingly involved in laser physics research. Following his return to Germany in 1986, he was appointed as a Director of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics and a Professor of Experimental Physics and Laser Spectroscopy at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. He was also a visiting professor at several international universities.

Professor Hansch is a distinguished researcher in laser physics. He developed methods to exploit the unique properties of laser light to eliminate the Doppler broadening of spectral lines. He was able to make widely tunable dye lasers (one of which is known as the Hansch laser) so monochromatic that Doppler–Free saturation spectroscopy could be applied at any wavelength from the near infrared to the near ultraviolet. Using an optical frequency comb generator which he and his group invented in the 1990s, he was able to measure Lyman lines of atomic hydrogen to an extraordinary precision of 1 part in a hundred trillion. Hansch’s studies revised the laws governing atoms, molecules, liquids and solids and led to major breakthroughs in the microscopic world. Professor Hansch authored and co-authored over 150 scientific papers and mentored numerous Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows, including the King Faisal Prize and Nobel laureate Carl Weiman.

Professor Hansch’s ground-breaking achievements in the development of laser-based, ultraprecise spectroscopy earned him the respect of the international scientific community and a long list of prestigious prizes, honorary degrees, lectureships, and fellowships of major scientific academies and societies. He also serves on the editorial boards of several physics journals.

Dr. Hansch produced a most important work in laser physics. Before his work, attempts to study the details at atomic and molecular structure were confounded by the Doppler broadening of their spectral signatures. When the Doppler broadening was thus drawn away a bewildering complexity was revealed in the spectra of heavier molecules.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Ahmed Hassan Zewail received his bachelor’s degree in 1967, and an M.Sc. degree in 1969 from the University of Alexandria, prior to traveling to the USA, where he earned his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1974, followed by postdoctoral work at the University of California in Berkeley. Zewail pursued a remarkable successful career from the time of his graduation, until his appointment as the Linus Pauling Chair of Chemistry and a Professor of Physics.

Professor Zewail is the world’s pioneer in introducing and developing the technique known as ultra-fast laser molecular beam spectroscopy. This has opened the field of real-time (femtosecond) molecular dynamics with sub-Angstrom resolution. His brilliant work unraveled some of the mysteries of molecules and made it possible to observe and study their motion in a femtosecond (one quadrillionth of a second or 10 -15 of a second), thereby enabling scientists for the first time to record the instant of a molecule’s creation. In addition to inventing the new field of femto science, Professor Zewail also founded the Center of Physical Biology at Caltech with the aim of deciphering the fundamental physics of chemical and biological behavior. Over the past few years, Professor Zewail and his group made seminal contributions to this new field, creating novel ways for better understanding the functional behavior of biological systems by directly visualizing them in the four dimensions of space.

Professor Zewail’s astounding scholarship earned him numerous honors; he was awarded several international prizes and medals, honorary doctorate degrees from ivy league universities, fellowships of major scientific academies and societies worldwide, visiting professorships, editorships and hundreds of invited lectureships. He published hundreds of scientific papers, and several books on the applications of lasers. He also supervised a large number of graduate and postdoctoral students and presented more than 300 named Plenary and keynote lectures.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Ricardo Miledi received his B.Sc. and M.D. at the Autonomous University of Mexico (Universidad Autonoma de Mexico), where he served at its National Institute of Cardiology. He held a fellowship at the Marine Biological Laboratories in Woods Hole, Massachusetts (USA) and a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship at the John Curtin School of Medical Research in the University of Canberra, Australia. Following this, he joined the University College London from 1958 to 1985, and took on several positions, including an Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Biophysics, a Professor of Biophysics, a Foulerton Research Professor of the Royal Society, and a Head of the Department. In 1985, he moved to the University of California, Irvin, where he served as a Distinguished Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior.

Professor Miledi was a world authority in neurophysiology, particularly the physiology of synapses. His fundamental studies of the processes by which nerve cells transfer information to muscles and other nerve cells opened the way for the advent of new methods for studying the brain. His research also focused on understanding signal transmission across nerve cells at the molecular level. Miledi’s overall contribution to neurophysiology had been significant for understanding certain neurological disorders and developing new methods of treatment. He published more than 350 papers in prestigious scientific journals and is one of the 10 most cited neurobiologists of all times. He also mentored generations of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.

Miledi was a Fellow of the Royal Society (London), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Third World Academy of Science, and the National Academy of Medicine and National Academy of Science in Mexico. He was the recipient of many illustrious prizes and honors; he was awarded an honorary doctorate degree by the University of the Basque Country and the Royal Medal from the Royal Society (London).

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Pierre Chambon obtained his M.D. in 1958 and began his career as a researcher, then as an associate professor at the Institute of Biology Sciences at Strasbourg Medical School. He became the Director of the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics of Eukaryotes (LGME) in 1977. He is currently a Professor of Biochemistry at the Institute of Chemical Biology, Faculty of Medicine, Strasbourg.

Professor Chambon made the striking discovery that eukaryotic cells are split in their amino acid coding sequence. This finding had markedly influenced current views on the structure, function and evolution of living organisms. Another major breakthrough was his discovery of transcription enhancers. This proved to be an essential component of the control of gene expression in eukaryotic cells. Chambon’s research was crucial to the advancement of molecular genetics and earned him several prestigious prizes and honorary fellowships and memberships of major scientific academies and organizations in Europe and the USA, as well as a long list of invited lectureships and visiting professorships. He published more than 250 scientific papers and reviews. He is ranked among the ten most cited researchers in molecular biology and genetics, and is considered by many as the father of the genetic revolution.

Professor Chambon earned many other prizes, and honors including an honorary doctorate degree from Liege University in Belgium. Professor Chambon is a Member of the French Académie des Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences. He also served on a number of editorial boards, including those of Cell, Molecular Cell, and Genes and Development.

Professor Charbon’s work has thus profoundly influenced the advance of molecular medicine in ways which relate to the understanding of cancer and its possible treatment.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Michael Francis Atiyah grew up in Sudan and Egypt before returning to the U.K. to complete his higher education. He obtained his B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Cambridge U.K., and completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Cambridge and the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University USA.

One of the greatest living mathematicians, Sir Michael Atiyah’s first major contribution was the development (with Hirzebruch) of the K-theory, a versatile topologic technique, which led to the solution of many outstanding problems in mathematics. He then developed (with Singer) the “Atiyah-Singer index theorem,” an important theorem that deals with a number of solutions of elliptic differential equations. That theorem later proved to be useful in theoretical physics, such as constructing solutions of certain partial differential equations giving “instantons”. Atiyah analyzed the global geometry of Yang-Mills fields and of general gauge theories. Overall, his work provided a deeper insight and understanding of both quantum field theory and general relativity. He published 15 books while most of his research was included in six volumes of Atiyah’s collected papers (except for his commutative algebra textbook and his later works).

Sir Michael was the Savilian Professor of Geometry and Fellow of St. Catherine’s College at Oxford University. He was also professor at Cambridge and Princeton Universities and visiting professor at Harvard, Yale, Chicago and other leading universities.

Sir Michael Atiya received many prestigious awards, medals and decorations, including the renowned Fields medal, the Royal Medal, and the De Morgan Medal of the London Mathematical Society. He was awarded honorary doctorate degrees by more than 30 universities and honorary fellowships of scientific academies in more than 20 countries. Atiya was knighted in 1983.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Michael John Berridge obtained his B.Sc. degree from the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in Salisbury in 1960 and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Cambridge in 1965. He carried out postdoctoral studies at the University of Virginia and Case Western Reserve University in the USA. He joined the Unit of Invertebrate Chemistry and Physiology in the Department of Zoology (now Laboratory of Molecular Signaling at the Brahman Institute) as Senior Scientific Officer at the University of Cambridge in 1969.

Professor Sir Michael Berridge made seminal contributions to the study of cellular signal mechanisms, including a discovery of a new signal that regulates various cell activities. The precursor of that signal turned out to be a lipid component of the cell membrane which is cleaved by an external signal (e.g., a hormone) to give a water soluble messenger that diffuses into the cells, thereby generating a variety of different cellular processes.

Professor Sir Michael Berridge is a fellow of the Royal Society and Trinity College (Cambridge), and a member of the Society of Experimental Biology. He received numerous prizes including the Feldberg Prize and the Louis Jeantet Prize in Medicine; Professor Berridge also had a long list of honorary lectureships.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.