Two Hebrew University professors will share Israel’s prestigious Wolf Prize in medicine.
Israeli President Shimon Peres will award the 2008 Wolf Prizes in Sciences and Arts at the Knesset on Sunday. Ten scientists from the United States, Britain and Israel were named by the Wolf Foundation in agriculture, chemistry, mathematics and medicine, with a $100,000 prize in each field. The arts prize, which rotates recognition in several fields, will go this year for excellence in music.
Howard Cedar and Aharon Razin were chosen in medicine for their contributions to the understanding of the role of DNA methylation in the control of gene expression.
John Pickett of Rothamsted Research in the United Kingdom, James Tumlinson of Penn State University and W. Joe Lewis of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Tifton, Ga., won in agriculture for their discoveries of mechanisms governing plant-insect and plant-plant interactions.
William Moerner of Stanford University and Allen Bard of the University of Texas will receive the chemistry prize for creating a new field of science involving single molecule spectroscopy and electrochemistry. The mathematics prize will go to Pierre Deligne and Phillip Griffiths of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., and David B. Mumford of Brown University.
Georgian composer Giya Kancheli and Italian conductor Claudio Abbado will share the arts prize.
The Wolf Foundation was established by Dr. Ricardo Wolf. Born in Germany, Wolf immigrated to Cuba before World War I. He later served as the Cuban ambassador to Israel, where he lived until his death in 1981.
Since 1978, Wolf prizes have been awarded annually to outstanding scientists and artists. To date, 253 laureates from 22 countries have been honored.
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