The Wolf Prize is awarded to outstanding scientists and artists, “for achievement in the interest of mankind and friendly relations among peoples.” The annual prizes of $100,000 are given in four out of five scientific fields in rotation: Agriculture, Chemistry, Mathematics, Medicine and Physics. In the Arts, the prize rotates among Architecture, Music, Painting and Sculpture.

The Wolf Prize was established in 1978 by German-born Ricardo Wolf and his wife Francisca Subirana-Wolf. Dr. Wolf, an inventor, diplomat and philanthropist, lived in Cuba for many years and served as Fidel Castro’s ambassador to Israel from 1961-1973. When Cuba severed ties with Israel in 1973, Dr. Wolf decided to stay in Israel where he spent his final years.

The Wolf Prizes in Physics and Chemistry are often considered the most prestigious awards in those fields after the Nobel Prize. The prize in physics has gained a reputation for identifying future winners of the Nobel Prize – from the 26 prizes awarded between 1978 and 2010, fourteen winners have gone on to win the Nobel Prize, five of those in the following year.

In medicine, the prize is probably the third most prestigious, after the Nobel Prize and the Lasker Award. Until the establishment of the Abel Prize, the Wolf Prize was probably the closest equivalent of a Nobel Prize in Mathematics, since the more prestigious Fields Medal was only awarded every four years to mathematicians under forty years old. The Prize in Agriculture has likewise been equated to a Nobel Prize in Agriculture.

Click on Any Field to View Prize Winners

Agriculture

Year
Recipient

1978

GEORGE F. SPRAGUE, University of Illinois, Urbana , U.S.A., for his outstanding research on the genetic amelioration of maize for human welfare; and JOHN C. WALKER, University of Wisconsin, Madison, U.S.A., for his research in plant pathology, developing of disease-resistant varieties of major food plants.

1979

JAY L. LUSH, Iowa State University, Ames, U.S.A. ,for his outstanding and pioneering contributions to the application of genetics to livestock improvement; and Sir KENNETH BLAXTER, Rowett Research Institute, Aberdeen, U.K., for his fundamental contributions to the science and practice of ruminant nutrition and livestock production.

1980

KARL MARAMOROSCH, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, U.S.A., for his pioneering and wide-ranging studies on interactions between insects and disease agents in plants.

1981

JOHN O. ALMQUIST, Pennsylvania State University, U.S.A., for his significant contributions to the application of artificial insemination to livestock improvement; HENRY A. LARDY, University of Wisconsin, Madison, U.S.A., for his pioneering research on storage and preservation of spermatozoa thus enabling artificial insemination to become a universal practice; and GLENN W. SALISBURY, University of Illinois, Urbana, U.S.A., for his outstanding achievements in basic and applied research on artificial insemination.

1982

WENDELL L. ROELOFS, Cornell University, Geneva, N.Y., U.S.A., for his fundamental chemical and biological research on pheromones and their practical use in insect control.

1983/4

DON KIRKHAM, Iowa State University, Ames, U.S.A. and CORNELIS T. De WIT, Agricultural University, Wageningen, Netherlands, for their innovative contributions to the quantitative understanding of soil-water and other environmental interactions influencing crop growth and yield.

1984/5

ROBERT H. BURRIS, University of Wisconsin, Madison, U.S.A., for his pioneering fundamental research on the mechanisms of biological nitrogen fixation and its application in crop production.

1986

Sir RALPH RILEY, Agricultural and Food Research Council, London, U.K. and ERNEST R. SEARS, University of Missouri, Columbia, U.S.A., for their fundamental research in cytogenetics of wheat, providing the basis for genetic improvement of cereal grains.

1987

THEODOR O. DIENER, Plant Protection Institute, USDA, Beltsville, U.S.A., for his discovery and pioneering fundamental research on viroids and his applied work on viroid detection in crops.

1988

CHARLES THIBAULT, Universite de Paris VI, Paris, France, and ERNEST JOHN CHRISTOPHER POLGE, Biotechnology Cambridge Ltd., Cambridge, U.K., for pioneering work in reproductive physiology including cell preservation, fertilization processes, egg biology and embryo manipulations for domestic animal improvement.

1989

PETER M. BIGGS, AFRC Institute for Animal Health, Huntingdon, U.K., and MICHAEL ELLIOTT, AFRC Institute of Arable Crops Research, Rothamsted, U.K., for distinguished contributions to basic science and its successful translation into practice in the fields of animal health and crop protection.

1990

JOZEF STEFAAN SCHELL, Max-Planck-Institute for Plant Breeding, Cologne, W.Germany, for his pioneering work in genetic transformation of plants, thereby opening up new horizons in basic plant science and breeding.

1991

SHANG-FA YANG, University of California, Davis, U.S.A., for his remarkable contributions to the understanding of the mechanism of biosynthesis, mode of action and applications of the plant hormone, Ethylene.

1993

JOHN E. CASIDA, University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A., for his pioneering studies on the mode of action of insecticides, design of safer pesticides and contributions to the understanding of nerve and muscle function in insects.

1994/5

CARL B. HUFFAKER, University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A.; and PERRY L. ADKISSON, TEXAS A&M University College Station, Texas, U.S.A., for their contributions to the development and implementation of environmentally beneficial integrated pest management systems for the protection of agricultural crops.

1995/6

MORRIS SCHNITZER, Centre for Land and Biological Resources Research, Agriculture Canada, Ottawa, Canada, and FRANK J. STEVENSON, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A., for their pioneering contributions to our understanding of the chemistry of soil organic matter and its application to agriculture.

1996/7

NEAL L. FIRST, University of Wisconsin, Department of Animal Sciences, Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.A., for his pioneering research in the reproductive biology of livestock.

1998

ILAN CHET, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel, and BALDUR R. STEFANSSON , University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada , for their contributionsto the environmentally safe development of world agriculture through innovative approaches in breeding and bio-control.

2000

GURDEV S. KHUSH, International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Makati City, Philippines, for his extraordinary contribution to theoretical research in plant genetics, evolution and breeding especially of rice, with regard to food production and alleviation of hunger.

2001

ROGER N. BEACHY, Danforth Plant Science Center, St. Louis, Missouri, USA; and JAMES E. WOMACK, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA, for the use of recombinant DNA technology, to revolutionize plant and animal sciences, paving the way for applications to neighboring fields.

2002/3

R. MICHAEL ROBERTS, Department of Animal Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, and FULLER W. BAZER, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA, for discoveries of Interferon-t and other pregnancy-associated proteins, which clarified the biological mystery of signaling between embryo and mother to maintain pregnancy, with profound effects on the efficiency of animal production systems, as well as human health and well-being.

2004

YUAN LONGPING, China National Hybrid Rice Research and Development Center, Mapoling, Hunan Province, China; and STEVEN D. TANKSLEY, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA, for innovative development of hybrid rice and discovery of the genetic basis of heterosis in this important food staple.

2006/7

RONALD L. PHILLIPS, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA; and MICHEL A. J. GEORGES, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium; for groundbreaking discoveries in genetics and genomics, laying the foundations for improvements in crop and livestock breeding, and sparking important advances in plant and animal sciences.

2008

JOHN A. PICKETT, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom; JAMES H. TUMLINSON, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA; and W. JOE LEWIS, Agricultural Research Service, US Department of Agriculture
Tifton, Georgia, USA; for their remarkable discoveries of mechanisms governing plant-insect and plant-plant interactions. Their scientific contributions on chemical ecology have fostered the development of integrated pest management and significantly advanced agricultural sustainability.

2010

SIR DAVID BAULCOMBE, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, Britain, for his pioneering discovery of gene regulation by small inhibitory RNA molecules in plants is of profound importance, not only for agriculture, but also for biology as a whole, including the field of medicine.

2011

HARRIS A. LEWIN, Vice Chancellor for Research, Professor of Evolution and Ecology, Robert and Rosabel Osborne Endowed Chair, University of California, Davis, U.S.A., for his contributions to fundamental and practical aspects of animal agriculture. PROF. JAMES R. COOK, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA for his discoveries in plant pathology and soil microbiology that impact crop productivity and disease management.

2013

JOACHIM MESSING, director of the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers University, New Jersey, U.S.A., for innovations in recombinant DNA cloning, which revolutionized agriculture, and for deciphering the genetic codes of crop plants. PROFESSOR JARED DIAMOND, professor of geography at UCLA., Los Angeles, CA, USA for pioneering theories of crop domestication, the rise of agriculture and its influences on the development and demise of human societies, and its impact on the ecology of the environment.

2014

JORGE DUBCOVSKY, plant geneticist and biologist, University of California, Davis, U.S.A.; and LEIF ANDERSSON, animal geneticist and professor of functional genomics at Uppsala University, Uppsala, SE. For their break-through contribution to the study of plants and animals, through the use of cutting-edge genomic technologies.

2015

LINDA J. SAIF, microbial scientist who works at Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, U.S.A., for her discoveries of novel enteric and respiratory viruses of food animals and humans which have led to her extensive contributions of fundamental knowledge of the gut-mammary immunologic axis and have provided new ways to design vaccines and vaccination strategies.

2016

TRUDY MACKAY, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, U.S.A.,> for her work in quantitative genetics, which studies the interaction between genes, traits and environmental effects.

2018

GENE E. ROBINSON, Director of the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, Urbana, IL, U.S.A., for leading the genomics revolution in the organismal and population biology of the honeybee.

2019
David Zilberman. Berkeley, USA.

2020
Caroline Dean. John Innes Centre, England.

2022
Pamela Ronald. University of California, Davis, USA.

2024

Venkatesan Sundaresan, University of California, Davis, USA, Joanne Chory, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, USA, and Elliot M. Meyerowitz, Caltech and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, USA, for key discoveries on plant developmental biology of relevance to crop improvement.

2025

Jonathan D. G. Jones, from the Sainsbury Laboratory, England, for groundbreaking discoveries of plant immune system and disease resistance.

2025

Jeffery L. Dangl, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, for groundbreaking discoveries of the immune system and disease resistance in plants.

2025

Brian J. Staskawicz, from the University of California, Berkeley, for groundbreaking discoveries of plant immune system and disease resistance.

Arts

Year

Field

Recipient

1981

Painting

MARC CHAGALL, Vence, France. The living greatest, original and poetic visionary among the pioneers of modern art, whose glowing colours and human warmth have both a deep personal meaning and universal appeal; and ANTONI TAPIES, Barcelona, Spain. One of the most important creators of the abstract "informal" movement and a leader of the "material" painters, in whose work "matter" is transformed into a pure spiritual expression.

1982

Music

VLADIMIR HOROWITZ, New York, U.S.A., for his outstanding contribution to the art of musical interpretation, and especially his musicalization of pianism; OLIVIER MESSIAEN, Paris, France, for his inspired and inspiring extension of our sound world; and JOSEF TAL, Jerusalem, Israel, for his novel approach to musical structure and texture and the unfailing dramatic tension of his creations.

1983/4

Architecture

RALPH ERSKINE, Drottningholm, Sweden, for his fundamental contribution to contemporary architecture, based on his creative spirit, solving human problems in a highly original formal language.

1984/5

Sculpture

EDUARDO CHILLIDA, San Sebastian, Spain. His sculpture, expressing a fruitful imagination and a practical beauty of forms, combines tradition and innovation in a contemporary guise.

1986

Painting

JASPER JOHNS, New York, U.S.A. One of the leading and most influential figures of Pop Art in the world since its inception.

1987

Music

ISAAC STERN, New York, U.S.A., for his everlasting humanistic contribution to society as an artist and educator, which trascends the boundaries of musical performance; and KRZYSZTOF PENDERECKI, Kraków, Poland, for his achievements and innovations in the field of composition.

1988

Architecture

FUMIHIKO MAKI, University of Tokyo, Japan; and GIANCARLO DE CARLO, Institute of Architecture, Venice, Italy, for their work which represents the spirit of an architecture that looks to the future without renouncing the past; brings about meaningful shapes and environments without forsaking human and social aspects and responds to universal issues without neglecting regional attributes.

1989

Sculpture

CLAES T. OLDENBURG, New York, U.S.A., who, over some three decades has invested prosaic objects with historic and mythical allusions. For all the simplicity of their subject matter, they are statements about metamorphosis and invite the observer to reflect upon life's processes.

1990

Painting

ANSELM KIEFER, Buchen, W. Germany, for his epic and physically compelling paintings, in which he creates a continuum, linking current life with history and mythology.

1991

Music

Sir YEHUDI MENUHIN, London, U. K. One of the greatest violinists of the 20th. century, his unforgettable interpretations and humanitarian activities contributed significantly to bringing nations together through musical education; and LUCIANO BERIO, Siena, Italy, One of the greatest composers of our generation, he is also recognized and admired worldwide as interpreter, conductor, lecturer and writer whose new ideas, in an age of devaluation of human values, help to bring closer nations, cultures and generations.

1992

Architecture

FRANK O. GEHRY, Santa Monica, CA., U.S.A. Creating architecture as art and sculpture, he embodies the fight for liberation destroying dogma, principle and method; JORN UTZON, Aalsgaarde, Denmark. His architecture, rooted in deep reading of human cultures, has given shape to processes of ritual and assembly in forms of haunting presence; and Sir DENYS LASDUN, London, U. K., With architecture as a social art, he enhances the relations between people through primary architectural means that far transcend style.

1993

Sculpture

BRUCE NAUMAN, Galisteo, New Mexico, U.S.A. for distinguished work as a sculptor and his extraordinary contribution to twentieth-century art.

1994/5

Painting

GERHARD RICHTER, Cologne, Germany, for his vast artistic activity, which has influenced the contemporary art scene of the past three decades.

1995/6

Music

ZUBIN MEHTA , The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Tel Aviv, Israel, who is considered one of the the world’s foremost conductores of our time. His humanitarian contributions to bring people together through the universal language of music and his constant encouragement of young artists, are unforgettable; and GYORGY LIGETI, Hochschule fuer Musik, Hamburg, Germany, one of the most outstanding composers of the second half of the 20th century. While based on musical tradition, he has brought new ways, orginal and innovative, and created models to inspire younger generations of composers.

1996/7

Architecture

FREI OTTO, Leonberg, Germany, and ALDO van EYCK, Amsterdam, Holland, for their fundamental structural contributions to the advancement of contemporary architecture as a social and technical art form in the evolution of the Twentieth Century.

1998

Sculpture

JAMES TURRELL, Flagstaff, Arizona, U.S.A., for his highly individualistic imagery, which is a spiritualized synthesis of form and light in seemingly infinite space.

2000

Music

PIERRE BOULEZ, Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique/musique (IRCAM), Paris, France, being one of the most creative living personalities in the realm of music, and RICCARDO MUTI, Teatro alla Scala, Milano, Italy, as one of the most outstanding conductors of our time.

2001

Architecture

ALVARO SIZA, Porto, Portugal, for the critical relevance of his typically responsive architecture to the continual transformation of both landscape and urban fabric.

2002/3

Painting & Sculpture

LOUISE BOURGEOIS, New York, USA, for an oeuvre, that for six decades and encompassing a remarkable range of media, has sustained aesthetic and formal innovation, intellectual complexity and contemporary relevance.

2004

Music

MSTISLAV ROSTROPOVICH, Paris, France, a cellist, conductor, pianist and exceptional human being, who has created a career of monumental proportions; and DANIEL BARENBOIM, State Opera House (Staatsoper unter den Linden), Berlin, Germany, and Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chicago, USA, a person of profound musical and humanitarian commitment, who has distinguished himself as one of the great musicians of our time.

2005

Architecture

JEAN NOUVEL, Paris, France, for providing a new model of contextualism and redefining the dialectic between the two salient characteristics of contemporary architecture: concreteness and ephemerality.

2006/7

Painting & Sculpture

MICHELANGELO PISTOLETTO, Biella, Italy, for his constantly inventive career as an artist, educator and activist, whose restless intelligence has created prescient forms of art that contribute to fresh understanding of the world.

2008

Music

GIYA KANCHELI, Tbilisi, Georgia, and Antwerpen, Belgium, one of the world´s greatest contemporary composers, whose unique music is infused with unforgettable beauty. CLAUDIO ABBADO, Milano, Italy, one of the world´s pre-eminent conductors. A remarkable human being, whose music-making is imbued with passion, intellect and love.

2010

Architecture

PETER EISENMAN, Eisenman Architects, New York, USA, an innovative architect and educator, for advancing the discipline of architecture through both theoretical texts and exceptional buildings of profound consequence. DAVID CHIPPERFIELD, David Chipperfield Architects ltd., London, United Kingdom, an extraordinary architect, who has brought great refinement and quality to a contemporary interpretation of classical architecture, as a profound principle, rather than simply as an image.

2011

Painting & Sculpture

ROSEMARIE TROCKEL, Cologne, Germany, for her multidimensional art practice, which provides a powerful model that engages the mainstream obliquely and critically. Rather than seeking a position at art´s center, she orbits it by choosing less familiar roads and venues, and thus avoids becoming fixed and predictable.

2012

Music

PLACIDO DOMINGO, Madrid, Spain, a Spanish tenor, conductor and arts administrator. He has recorded over a hundred complete operas and is well known for his versatility, regularly performing in Italian, French, German, Spanish, English and Russian in the most prestigious opera houses in the world. SIMON RATTLE, London, UK, influential English conductor.

2013

Architecture

EDUARDO SOUTO DE MOURA, Portugal, expert Portuguese architect. He was announced as the 2011 Pritzker Prize winner, architecture's highest honor.

2014

Sculpture

OLAFUR ELIASSON, Copenhagen, Denmark, Icelandic-Danish artist known for sculptures and large-scale installation art employing elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature to enhance the viewer’s experience.

2015

Music

JESSYE NORMAN, USA, Opera singer and recitalist, she has received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Medal of Arts, and is a member of the British Royal Academy of Music. MURRAY PERAHIA, NYC, USA, American Jewish composer and president of the Jerusalem Music Center.

2016

Architecture

PHYLLIS LAMBERT, Montreal, QUE, Canadian architect and philanthropist.

2017

Painting & Sculpture

LAURICE ANDERSON, Illinois, U.S.A., an American avant-garde artist, composer, musician and film director whose work spans performance art, pop music, and multimedia projects. LAWRENCE WEINER, NYC, USA, a central figure in the development of conceptual art in the 1960's, his work often includes typographic text images.

2018

Music

PAUL MCCARTNEY, UK, a member of the hugely influential band The Beatles, Paul McCartney is one of the greatest songwriters of all time. ADAM FISCHER, Budapest, HU, Hungarian conductor. General music director of the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra, chief conductor of the Danish National Chamber Orchestra, and chief conductor of the Düsseldorf Symphony.

2019

Architecture
Moshe Safdie

2020

Art
Cindy Sherman. U.S. photographer.

2021

Music

Olga Neuwirth, Composer

2021

Music
Stevie Wonder, Singer, songwriter

2022

Architecture

Momoyo Kaijima & Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, “for their work that highlights the importance to architecture of its ethnographic and inhabitational characteristics, in their writings and practice.”

2022

Architecture

Elizabeth Diller, “for her exceptional and influential work connecting architecture to artistic practice, engaged in the public domain.”

2025

Architecture

Tiantian Xu, from China, is known for her architecture, which transformed villages throughout China economically, socially, and culturally.

Chemistry

Year
Recipient

1978

CARL DJERASSI, Stanford University, Stanford, U.S.A., for his work in bioorganic chemistry, application of new spectroscopic techniques, and his support of international cooperation.

1979

HERMAN F. MARK, Polytechnic Institute of New York, N.Y., U.S.A., for his contributions to understanding the structure and behavior of natural and synthetic polymers.

1980

HENRY EYRING, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, U.S.A., for his development of absolute rate theory and its imaginative applications to chemical and physical processes.

1981

JOSEPH CHATT, University of Sussex, Brighton, U.K., for pioneering and fundamental contributions to synthetic transition metal chemistry, particularly transition metal hydrides and dinitrogen complexes.

1982

JOHN C. POLANYI, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada, for his studies of chemical reactions in unprecedented detail by developing the infrared chemiluminiscence technique, and for envisaging the chemical laser, and GEORGE C. PIMENTEL, University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A., for development of matrix isolation spectroscopy and for the discovery of photodissociation lasers and chemical lasers.

1983/4

HERBERT S. GUTOWSKY, University of Illinois, Urbana, U.S.A., for his pioneering work in the development and applications of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy in chemistry; HARDEN M. McCONNELL, Stanford University, Stanford, U.S.A., for his studies of the electronic structure of molecules through paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy and for the introduction and biological applications of spin label techniques, and JOHN A. WAUGH, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, U.S.A., for his fundamental theoretical and experimental contributions to high resolution nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy in solids.

1984/5

RUDOLPH A. MARCUS, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, U.S.A., for his contributions to chemical kinetics, especially the theories of unimolecular reactions and electron transfer reactions.

1986

ELIAS JAMES COREY, Harvard University, Cambridge, U.S.A., for outstanding research on the synthesis of many highly complex natural products and the demonstration of novel ways of thinking about such syntheses. ALBERT ESCHENMOSER, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland, for outstanding research on the synthesis, stereochemistry and reaction mechanisms for formation of natural products, especially Vitamin-B12.

1987

Sir DAVID C. PHILLIPS, University of Oxford, Oxford, U.K.; and DAVID M. BLOW, Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, U.K., for their contributions to protein X-ray crystallography and to the elucidation of structures of enzymes and their mechanisms of action.

1988

JOSHUA JORTNER, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel; and RAPHAEL DAVID LEVINE, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel, for their incisive theoretical studies elucidating energy acquisition and disposal in molecular systems and mechanisms for dynamical selectivity and specificity.

1989

DUILIO ARIGONI, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland; and ALAN R. BATTERSBY, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, U.K., for their fundamental contributions to the elucidation of the mechanism of enzymic reactions and of the biosynthesis of natural products, in particular the pigments of life.

1991

RICHARD R. ERNST, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland, for his revolutionary contributions to NMR spectroscopy, especially Fourier-transform and two-dimensional NMR, and ALEXANDER PINES, University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A., for his revolutionary contributions to NMR spectroscopy, especially multiple-quantum and high-spin NMR.

1992

JOHN A. POPLE, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, U.S.A., for his outstanding contributions to theoretical chemistry, particularly in developing effective and widely used modern quantum- chemical methods.

1993

AHMED H. ZEWAIL, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, U.S.A., for pioneering the development of laser femtochemistry. Using lasers and molecular beams, femtochemistry has made it now possible to probe the evolution of chemical reactions as they actually happen in real time.

1994/5

RICHARD A. LERNER, Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, U.S.A.; and PETER G. SCHULTZ, University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A., for converting antibodies into enzymes, thus permitting the catalysis of chemical reactions considered impossible to achieve by classical chemical procedures.

1995/6

GILBERT STORK, Columbia University, N.Y., U.S.A.; and SAMUEL J. DANISHEFSKY, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and Columbia University, N.Y., U.S.A., for designing and developing novel chemical reactions which have opened new avenues to the synthesis of complex molecules, particularly polysaccharides and many other biologically and medicinally important compounds.

1998

GERHARD ERTL, Fritz-Haber Institute, Berlin, Germany; and GABOR A. SOMORJAI, University of California, and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley, California, U.S.A., for their outstanding contributions to the field of the surface science in general, and for their elucidation of fundamental mechanisms of heterogeneous catalytic reactions at single crystal surfaces in particular.

1999

RAYMOND U. LEMIEUX, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, for his fundamental and seminal contributions to the study and synthesis of oligosaccharides and to the elucidation of their role in molecular recognition in biological systems.

2000

F. ALBERT COTTON, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, U.S.A., for opening up an entirely new phase of transition metal chemistry based on pairs and clusters of metal atoms directly linked by single or multiple bonds.

2001

HENRI B. KAGAN, University Paris-South, Paris, France; and RYOJI NOYORI, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan; and K. BARRY SHARPLESS, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, USA, for their pioneering, creative and crucial work in developing asymmetric catalysis for the synthesis of chiral molecules, greatly increasing mankind's ability to create new products of fundamental and practical importance.

2004

HARRY B. GRAY, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, U.S.A., for pioneering work in bio-inorganic chemistry, unravelling novel principles of structure and long-range electron transfer in proteins.

2005

RICHARD N. ZARE, Stanford University, Stanford, California, U.S.A., for his ingenious applications of laser techniques, for identifying complex mechanisms.

2006/7

ADA YONATH, Wiezmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel; and GEORGE FEHER, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA, for ingenious structural discoveries of the ribosomal machinery of peptide-bond formation and the light-driven primary processes in photosynthesis.

2008

WILLIAM E. MOERNER, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA; and and ALLEN BARD, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, USA, for the ingenious creation of a new field of science, single molecule spectroscopy and electrochemistry, with impact at the nanoscopic regime, from the molecular and cellular domain to complex material systems.

2011

STUART A. RICE, Department of Chemistry, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, U.S.A.; CHING TANG, Chemical Engineering, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, U.S.A.; and KRZYSZTOF MATYJASZEWSKI, Department of Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, U.S.A.; for deep creative contributions to the chemical sciences in the field of synthesis, properties and an understanding of organic materials.

2012

PAUL ALIVISATOS, University of California, Berkeley's Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A., for his development of the colloidal inorganic nanocrystal as a building block of nanoscience and for making fundamental contributions to controlling the synthesis of these particles, to measuring and understanding their physical properties. CHARLES LIEBER, Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, for his seminal contributions to nanochemistry and particularly the synthesis of single-crystalline semiconductor nanowires, characterization of the fundamental physical properties of nanowires, and their application to electronics, photonics and nanomedicine.

2013

ROBERT S. LANGER, David H. Koch Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MA, U.S.A., for conceiving and implementing advances in polymer chemistry that provide both controlled drug-release systems and new biomaterials.

2014

CHI-HUEY WONG, professor of chemistry and chemical biology at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, and National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan, for his numerous and original contributions to the development of innovative methods for the programmable and applied synthesis of complex oligosaccharides and glycol-proteins.

2016

KYRIACOS COSTA NICOLAOU,Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Professor of Chemistry at Rice University, Houston, TX, U.S.A., for advancing the field of chemical synthesis to the extremes of molecular complexity, linking structure and function and expanding our dominion over the interface of chemistry, biology and medicine. STUART SCHREIBER, scientist at Harvard University and co-Founder of the Broad Institute, MA, USA, for pioneering chemical insights into the logic of signal transduction and gene regulation that led to important, new therapeutics and for advancing chemical biology and medicine through the discovery of small-molecule probes.

2017

ROBERT G. BERGMAN, American chemist, for his discovery of the activation responses of carbon-hydrogen bonds in hydrocarbons by soluble organometallic complexes..

2018

OMAR M. YAGHI, Jordanian-American chemist, James and Neeltje Tretter Chair Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A., for pioneering Reticular Chemistry via Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) and Covalent Organic Frameworks (COFs). MAKOTO FUJITA, professor in the Department of Applied Chemistry at the University of Tokyo, Tokyo, JPN, for conceiving metal-directed assembly principles leading to large highly porous complexes.

2019
Stephen L. Buchwald, MIT, USA

2019
John F. Hartwig, Berkeley, USA

2021

Leslie Leiserowit, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel

2021

Meir Lahav, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel

2022

Benjamin F. Cravatt III, Scripps Research Institute, USA

2022

Bonnie L. Bassler, Princeton, USA

2022

Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Stanford, USA

2025

Helmut Schwarz, from Technische Universität Berlin, Germany, for quantifying reactive species in the gas phase to solve fundamental problems in catalysis.

Mathematics

Year
Recipient

1978
IZRAIL M. GELFAND, Moscow State University, Moscow, U.S.S.R., for his work in functional analysis, group representation, and for his seminal contributions to many areas of mathematics and its applications, and CARL L. SIEGEL , Georg-August University, Gottingen, W. Germany, for his contributions to the theory of numbers, theory of several complex variables, and celestial mechanics.

1979
JEAN LERAY, College de France, Paris, France, for pioneering work on the development and application of topological methods to the study of differential equations; and ANDRE WEIL, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, U.S.A., for his inspired introduction of algebro-geometry methods to the theory of numbers.

1980
HENRI CARTAN, Universite de Paris, Paris, France, for pioneering work in algebraic topology, complex variables, homological algebra and inspired leadership of a generation of mathematicians; and ANDREI N. KOLMOGOROV, Moscow State University, Moscow, U.S.S.R., for deep and original discoveries in Fourier analysis, probability theory, ergodic theory and dynamical systems.

1981
LARS V. AHLFORS, Harvard University, Cambridge, U.S.A., for seminal discoveries and the creation of powerful new methods in geometric function theory; and OSCAR ZARISKI, Harvard University, Cambridge, U.S.A., creator of the modern approach to algebraic geometry, by its fusion with commutative algebra.

1982
HASSLER WHITNEY, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, U.S.A., for his fundamental work in algebraic topology, differential geometry and differential topology; and MARK GRIGOR'EVICH KREIN, Ukrainian S.S.R. Academy of Sciences, Odessa, U.S.S.R., for his fundamental contributions to functional analysis and its applications.

1983/4
SHIING S. CHERN, University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A., for outstanding contributions to global differential geometry, which have profoundly influenced all mathematics; and PAUL ERDOS, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary, for his numerous contributions to number theory, combinatorics, probability, set theory and mathematical analysis, and for personally stimulating mathematicians the world over.

1984/5
KUNIHIKO KODAIRA, The Japan Academy, Tokyo, Japan, for his outstanding contributions to the study of complex manifolds and algebraic varieties; and HANS LEWY, University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A., for initiating many, now classic and essential, developments in partial differential equations.

1986
SAMUEL EILENBERG, Columbia University, N.Y., U.S.A., for his fundamental work in algebraic topology and homological algebra; and ATLE SELBERG, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, U.S.A., for his profound and original work on number theory and on discrete groups and automorphic forms.

1987
KIYOSHI ITO, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, for his fundamental contributions to pure and applied probability theory, especially the creation of the stochastic differential and integral calculus; and PETER D. LAX, New York University, N.Y., U.S.A., for his outstanding contributions to many areas of analysis and applied mathematics.

1988
FRIEDRICH HIRZEBRUCH,Max-Planck-Institut and University of Bonn, Bonn, W.Germany for outstanding work combining topology, algebraic and differential geometry, and algebraic number theory; and for his stimulation of mathematical cooperation and research; and LARS HORMANDER, University of Lund, Lund, Sweden, for fundamental work in modern analysis, in particular, the application of pseudo-differential and Fourier integral operators to linear partial differential equations.

1989
ALBERTO P. CALDERON, University of Chicago, Chicago, U.S.A., for his groundbreaking work on singular integral operators and their application to important problems in partial differential equations; and JOHN W. MILNOR, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, U.S.A., for ingenious and highly original discoveries in geometry, which have opened important new vistas in topology from the algebraic, combinatorial, and differentiable viewpoint.

1990
ENNIO DE GIORGI, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy, for his innovating ideas and fundamental achievements in partial differential equations and calculus of variations; and ILYA PIATETSKI-SHAPIRO, Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel, for his fundamental contributions in the fields of homogeneous complex domains, discrete groups, representation theory and automorphic forms.

1992
LENNART A.E. CARLESON, University of Uppsala, Uppsala, Sweden, and U.C.L.A, Los Angeles, U.S.A, for his fundamental contributions to Fourier analysis, complex analysis, quasi-conformal mappings and dynamical systems; and JOHN G. THOMPSON, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, U.K., for his profound contributions to all aspects of finite group theory and connections with other branches of mathematics.

1993
MIKHAEL GROMOV, Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques - IHES, Bures-sur-Yvette, France , for his revolutionary contributions to global Riemmanian and symplectic geometry, algebraic topology, geometric group theory and the theory of partial differential equations; and JACQUES TITS, College de France, Paris, France, for his pioneering and fundamental contributions to the theory of the structure of algebraic and other classes of groups and in particular for the theory of buildings.

1994/5
JURGEN K. MOSER, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland, for his fundamental work on stability in Hamiltonian mechanics and his profound and influential contributions to nonlinear differential equations.

1995/6
ROBERT LANGLANDS, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, U.S.A., for his path-blazing work and extraordinary insight in the fields of number thory, automorphic forms and group representation, and ANDREW J. WILES, Princeton University, Princeton, U.S.A., for spectacular contributions to number theory and related fields, major advances on fundamental conjectures,and for settling Fermat's last theorem.

1996/7
JOSEPH B. KELLER, Stanford University, Stanford, California, U.S.A., for his profound and innovative contributions, in particular to electromagnetic, optical, acoustic wave propagation and to fluid, solid, quantum and statistical mechanics; and YAKOV G. SINAI, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.A. and Landau Institute of Theoretical Physics, Moscow, Russia, for his fundamental contributions to mathematically rigorous methods in statistical mechanics and the ergodic theory of dynamical systems and their applications in physics.

1999
LASZLO LOVASZ, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.A., and Eotvos University, Budapest, Hungary, for his outstanding contributions to combinatorics, theoretical computer science and combinatorial optimization, and ELIAS M. STEIN, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.A., for his contributions to classical and "Euclidean" Fourier analysis and for his exceptional impact on a new generation of analysts through his eloquent teaching and writing.

2000
RAOUL BOTT, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A., for his deep discoveries in topology and differential geometry and their applications to Lie groups, differential operators and mathematical physics, and JEAN-PIERRE SERRE, College de France, Paris, France, for his many fundamental contributions to topology, algebraic geometry, algebra, and number theory and for his inspirational lectures and writing.

2001
VLADIMIR I. ARNOLD, Steklov Mathematical Institute, Moscow, Russia; and University Paris-Dauphine, Paris, France, for his deep and influential work in a multitude of areas of mathematics, including dynamical systems, differential equations, and singularity theory; and SAHARON SHELAH, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel, for his many fundamental contributions to mathematical logic and set theory, and their applications within other parts of mathematics.

2002/3
MIKIO SATO, Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, for his creation of ‘algebraic analysis', including hyperfunction and microfunction theory, holonomic quantum field theory, and a unified theory of soliton equations; and JOHN T. TATE, Department of Mathematics, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, USA, for his creation of fundamental concepts in algebraic number theory.

2005
GREGORY A. MARGULIS, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.A., for his monumental contributions to algebra, in particular to the theory of lattices in semi-simple Lie groups, and striking applications of this to ergodic theory, representation theory, number theory, combinatorics, and measure theory; and SERGEI P. NOVIKOV, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA; and the L.D. Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, Moscow, Russia, for his fundamental and pioneering contributions to algebraic and differential topology, and to mathematical physics, notably the introduction of algebraic-geometric methods.

2006/7
STEPHEN SMALE, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California, U.S.A., for his groundbreaking contributions that have played a fundamental role in shaping differential topology, dynamical systems, mathematical economics, and other subjects in mathematics; and HARRY FURSTENBERG, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel, or his profound contributions to ergodic theory, probability, topological dynamics, analysis on symmetric spaces and homogenous flows.

2008
PIERRE R. DELIGNE, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.A., for his work on mixed Hodge theory; the Weil conjectures; the Riemann-Hilbert correspondence; and for his contributions to arithmetic; PHILLIP GRIFFITHS, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, USA, for his work on variations of Hodge structures; the theory of periods of abelian integrals; and for his contributions to complex differential geometry; and DAVID MUMFORD, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA, for his work on algebraic surfaces; on geometric invariant theory; and for laying the foundations of the modern algebraic theory of moduli of curves and theta functions.

2010
SHING-TUNG YAU, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A., for his work in geometric analysis that has had a profound and dramatic impact on many areas of geometry and physics. DENNIS SULLIVAN, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, and CUNY Graduate School and University Center, New York, USA, for his innovative contributions to algebraic topology and conformal dynamics.

2012
MICHAEL ASCHBACHER, Shaler Arthur Hanisch Professor of Mathematics at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, U.S.A., for his work on the theory of finite groups. LOUIS CAFFARELLI, Fwlloe, American Mathematical Society, Providence, RI, USA, for his work on partial differential equations.

2013
GEORGE D. MOSTOW, 49th President of the American Mathematical Society, Providence, RI, U.S.A., for his fundamental and pioneering contribution to geometry and Lie group theory. MICHAEL ARTIN, professor emeritus in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA, for his fundamental contributions to algebraic geometry. His mathematical accomplishments are astonishing for their depth and their scope.

2014
PETER SARNAK, Eugene Higgins Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, U.S.A., for his deep contributions in analysis, number theory, geometry, and combinatorics.

2015
JAMES G. ARTHUR, Mathematics Department of the University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, for his monumental work on the trace formula and his fundamental contributions to the theory of automorphic representations of reductive groups.

2017
RICHARD SCHOEN, Excellence in Teaching Chair at the University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, U.S.A., for his contributions to geometric analysis and the understanding of the interconnectedness of partial differential equations and differential geometry. CHARLES FEFFERMAN, Princeton University, Princeton, MA, for his contributions in a number of mathematical areas including complex multivariate analysis, partial differential equations and sub-elliptical problems.

2018
ALEXANDER BEILINSON, David and Mary Winton Green University Professor at the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, U.S.A.; and VLADIMIR DRINFELD, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA, for their work that has made significant progress at the interface of geometry and mathematical physics.

2019
Jean Francois le Gall. Université Paris-Sud ,France

2019
Gregory Lawler. University of Chicago

2020
Yakov Eliashberg. Stanford

2020
Simon Kirwan Donaldson. Imperial College London and Simons Center, Stony Brook , UK

2022

George Lusztig, MIT, USA.

2024

Noga Alon, Princeton University, USA, and Adi Shamir, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, for their pioneering contributions to mathematical cryptography, combinatorics, and the theory of computer science.

Medicine

Year
Recipient

1978
GEORGE D. SNELL, Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Bar Harbor, ME, U.S.A., for discovery of H-2 antigens, which codes for major transplantation antigens and the onset of the immune response. JEAN DAUSSET, College de France, Paris, FR, for discovering the HL-A system, the major histocompatibility complex in man and its primordial role in organ transplantation. JON VAN ROOD, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, NL, for his contribution to the understanding of the complexity of the HL-A system in man and its implications in transplantation and in disease.

1979
ROGER WOLCOTT SPERRY, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, U.S.A., for his studies on the functional differentiation of the right and left hemispheres of the brain. ARVID CARLSSON, Lund University, Scania, Scania, SE, for his work which established the role of dopamine as a neurotransmitter. OLEH HORNYKIEWICZ, University fo Toronto, Toronto, BC, for opening a new approach in the control of Parkinson's disease by L-Dopa.

1980
CESAR MILSTEIN, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, LEO SACHS, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, IL; and JAMES L. GOWANS, Oxford University, Oxford, UK, for their contributions to knowledge of the function and dysfunction of the body cells through their studies on the immunological role of the lymphocytes, the development of specific antibodies and the elucidation of mechanisms governing the control and differentiation of normal and cancer cells.

1981
BARBARA MCCLINTOCK, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY, U.S.A.,for her imaginative and important contributions to our understanding of chromosome structure behaviour and function, and for her identification and description of transposable genetic (mobile) elements. STANLEY N. COHEN, Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in the Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA, for his concepts underlying genetic engineering; for constructing a biologically functional hybrid plasmid, and for achieving actual expression of a foreign gene implanted in E. coli by the recombinant DNA method.

1982
STANLEY N. COHEN, Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in the Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA, for his concepts underlying genetic engineering; for constructing a biologically functional hybrid plasmid, and for achieving actual expression of a foreign gene implanted in E. coli by the recombinant DNA method.

1984/5
DONALD F. STEINER, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA, for his discoveries concerning the bio-synthesis and processing of insulin which have had profound implications for basic biology and clinical medicine.

1986
OSAMU HAYAISHI, NIH, MD, USA, for his discovery of the oxygenase enzymes and elucidation of their structure and biological importance.

1987
PEDRO CUATRECASAS, Professor of Pharmacology & Medicine at the University of California San Diego, San Diego, Ca, USA; and MEIR WILCHEK, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, IL, for the invention and development of affinity chromatography and its applications to biomedical sciences.

1988
HENRI G. HERS, Université catholique de Louvain, Brussels, BE; and ELIZABETH F NEUFELD, Former Chair of the Department of Biological Chemistry UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, for the biochemical elucidation of lysosomal storage diseases and the resulting contributions to biology, pathology, prenatal diagnosis and therapeutics.

1989
JOHN GURDON, UK, for his introduction of the xenopus oocyte into molecular biology and his demonstration that the nucleus of a differentiated cell and of the egg differ in expression but not in the content of genetic material; and EDWARD B. LEWIS, Pasadena, CA, U.S.A., for his demonstration and exploration of the genetic control of the development of body segments by homeotic genes.

1990
MACLYN MCCARTY, Former Physician-in-chief of the Rockefeller University Hospital, NYC, USA, for his part in the demonstration that the transforming factor in bacteria is due to deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and the concomitant discovery that the genetic material is composed of DNA.

1991
SEYMOUR BENZER, Former James G. Boswell Professor of Neuroscience, Emeritus, at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, U.S.A, for having generated a new field of molecular neurogenetics by his pioneering research on the dissection of the nervous system and behavior by gene mutations.

1992
M. JUDAH FOLKMAN, Former Julia Dyckman Andrus Professor of Pediatric Surgery at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA, for his discoveries which originated the concept and developed the field of angiogenesis research.

1994/5
MICHAEL J. BERRIDGE, Emeritus Babraham Fellow in the Signalling Programme Department of the Babraham Institute, Cambridge, UK, YASUTOMI NISHIZUKA, Former chairman of the Department of Biochemistry, Kobe University School of Medicine, Kobe, JPN, for their discoveries concerning cellular transmembrane signalling involving phospholipids and calcium.

1995/6
STANLEY B. PRUSINGER, Director of the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases at University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, U.S.A., for discovering prions, a new class of pathogens that cause important neurodegenerative disease by inducing changes in protein structure.

1997
MARY FRANCES LYON, Norwich, UK, for her hypothesis concerning the random inactivation of X-chromosomes in mammals.

1998
MICHAEL SELA, W. Garfield Weston Professor of Immunology at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, IL; and RUTH ARNON, Paul Ehrlich Professor of Immunology at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, IL, for their major discoveries in the field of immunology.

1999
ERIC KANDEL, Senior Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Chevy Chase, MD, USA, for the elucidation of the organismic, cellular and molecular mechanisms whereby short-term memory is converted to a long-term form.

2001
AVRAM HERSHKO, Distinguished Professor at the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion, Haifa, IL; and ALEXANDER VARSHAVSKY, Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA, for the discovery of the ubiquitin system of intracellular protein degradation and the crucial functions of this system in cellular regulation.

2002/3
RALPH L. BRINSTER, Richard King Mellon Professor of Reproductive Physiology at the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, PA, USA, for the development of procedures to manipulate mouse ova and embryos, which has enabled transgenesis and its applications in mice. MARIO CAPECCHI, Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics and Biology at the University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, UT, USA, OLIVER SMITHIES, Former Excellence Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA, for their contribution to the development of gene-targeting, enabling elucidation of gene function in mice.

2004
ROBERT A. WEINBERG, Director of the Ludwig Center at MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA, for his discovery that cancer cells including human tumor cells, carry somatically mutated genes-oncogenes that operate to drive their malignant proliferation. ROGER Y. TSIEN, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA, for his seminal contribution to the design and biological application of novel fluorescent and photolabile molecules to analyze and perturb cell signal transduction.

2005
ALEXANDER LEVITSKI, Professor of biochemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, IL, for pioneering signal transduction therapy and for developing tyrosine kinase inhibitors as effective agents against cancer and a range of other diseases. ANTHONY R. HUNTER, Professor of Biology at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, San Diego, CA, USA, for the discovery of protein kinases that phosphorylate tyrosine residues in proteins, critical for the regulation of a wide variety of cellular events, including malignant transformation.. ANTHONY J. PAWSON, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, for his discovery of protein domains essential for mediating protein-protein interactions in cellular signaling pathways, and the insights this research has provided into cancer.

2008
HOWARD CEDAR, Professor emeritus in the Department for Developmental Biology & Cancer Research, The Institute For Medical Research, Israel-Canada; and AHARON RAZIN, Professor emeritus in the Department for Developmental Biology & Cancer Research, The Institute For Medical Research, Israel-Canada, for their fundamental contributions to our understanding of the role of DNA methylation in the control of gene expression.

2010
AXEL ULLRICH, Director of the molecular biology department at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Martinsried, Germany, for groundbreaking cancer research that has led to development of new drugs.

2011
SHINYA YAMANAKA, Director of Center for induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Research and Application, Kyoto University, Kyoto, JPN; and RUDOLF JAENISCH, Professor of Biology at MIT, Cambridge, MA, for the generation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) from skin cells (SY) and demonstration that iPS cells can be used to cure genetic disease in a mammal, thus establishing their therapeutic potential (RJ).

2012
RONALD M. EVANS, Professor and biologist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, USA, for his discovery of the gene super-family encoding nuclear receptors and elucidating the mechanism of action of this class of receptors.

2014
NAHUM SONENBERG, James McGill professor of biochemistry at McGill University, Montreal, BC, for his discovery of the proteins that control the protein expression mechanism and their operation. GARY RUVKUN, Professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA, VICTOR AMBROS, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA, for the discovery of the micro-RNA molecules that play a key role in controlling gene expression in natural processes and disease development.

2015
JOHN KAPPLER, Professor in the Department of Integrated Immunology at National Jewish Health, Denver, CO, USA; and PHILIPPA MARRACK, Denver, CO, USA, JEFFREY RAVETECH, Professor and head of the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics and Immunology at The Rockefeller University, NY, USA, for major contributions to the understanding of the key antigen-specific molecules, the T cell receptor for antigen and antibodies and how these molecules participate in immune recognition and effector function.

2016
C. RONALD KAHN, Mary K. Iacocca Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, for pioneering studies defining insulin signaling and its alterations in disease. LEWIS C. CANTLEY, Meyer Director and Professor of Cancer Biology at the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center, Cornell University, NY, USA, for discovery of phosphoinositide- 3 kinases and their roles in physiology and disease.

2017
JAMES P. ALLISON, Executive director of immunotherapy platform at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA, for a revolution in cancer treatment due to the discovery of the immune control barrier.

2019
Jeffrey M. Friedman, Rockefeller University, USA.

2020
Emmanuelle Charpentier. The Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens, Berlin.

2020
Jennifer Doudna. University of California Berkeley, USA.

2021
Adrian Krainer, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, USA.

2021
Lynne Elizabeth Maquat, University of Rochester, USA.

2021
Joan Steitz, Yale University, USA.

2024

José-Alain Sahel, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, USA and Sorbonne Université, France, and Botond Roska, Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel (IOB), Switzerland, for sight-saving and vision restoration to blind people using optogenetics.

Physics

Year

Recipient

1978

CHIEN-SHIUNG WU, Columbia University, N.Y., U.S.A., for exploring the weak interaction, helping establish the precise form and the non-conservation of parity for this natural force.

1979

GEORGE UHLENBECK, Rockefeller University, N.Y., U.S.A., for his discovery, jointly with the late S.A. Goudsmit, of the electron spin; and GIUSEPPE OCCHIALINI, University of Milan, Milan, Italy, for his contributions to the discoveries of electron pair production and of the charged pion.

1980

MICHAEL E. FISHER, Cornell University, Ithaca, U.S.A.; and LEO P. KADANOFF, University of Chicago, Chicago, U.S.A., and KENNETH G. WILSON, Cornell University, Ithaca, U.S.A., for pathbreaking developments culminating in the general theory of the critical behavior at transitions between the different thermodynamic phases of matter.

1981

FREEMAN J. DYSON, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, U.S.A.; and GERARD 't HOOFT, University of Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands; and VICTOR F. WEISSKOPF, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, U.S.A., for their outstanding contributions to theoretical physics, especially in the development and application of the quantum theory of fields.

1982

LEON M. LEDERMAN, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, U.S.A.; and MARTIN M. PERL, Stanford Linear Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford, U.S.A., for their experimental discovery of unexpected new particles establishing a third generation of quarks and leptons.

1983/4

ERWIN L. HAHN, University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A., for his discovery of nuclear spin echoes and for the phenomenon of self-induced transparency; Sir PETER B. HIRSH, University of Oxford, Oxford, U.K., for his development of the utilization of the transmission electron microscope as a universal instrument to study the structure of crystalline matter; and THEODORE H. MAIMAN, Maiman Associates, Marina del Rey, U.S.A., for his realization of the first operating laser, the pulsed three level ruby laser.

1984/5

CONYERS HERRING, Stanford University, Stanford, U.S.A.; and PHILIPPE NOZIERES, Institut Laue-Langevin, Grenoble, France, for their major contributions to the fundamental theory of solids, especially of the behaviour of electrons in metals.

1986

MITCHELL J. FEIGENBAUM, Cornell University, Ithaca, U.S.A., for his pioneering theoretical studies demonstrating the universal character of non-linear systems, which has made possible the systematic study of chaos; and ALBERT J. LIBCHABER, University of Chicago, Chicago, U.S.A., for his brilliant experimental demonstration of the transition to turbulence and chaos in dynamical systems.

1987

HERBERT FRIEDMAN, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington D.C., U.S.A., for pioneering investigations in solar X-rays; BRUNO B. ROSSI, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, U.S.A., and RICCARDO GIACCONI, Space Telescope Science Institute and Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, U.S.A., for the discovery of extra-solar X-ray sources and the elucidation of their physical processes.

1988

ROGER PENROSE, University of Oxford, Oxford, U.K.; and STEPHEN W. HAWKING, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, U.K., for their brilliant development of the theory of general relativity, in which they have shown the necessity for cosmological singularities and have elucidated the physics of black holes. In this work they have greatly enlarged our understanding of the origin and possible fate of the Universe.

1990

PIERRE-GILLES de GENNES, College de France, Paris, France; and DAVID J. THOULESS, University of Washington, Seattle, U.S.A., for a wide variety of pioneering contributions to our understanding of the organization of complex condensed matter systems,de Gennes especially for his work on macromolecular matter and liquid crystals and Thouless for his on disordered and low-dimensional systems.

1991

MAURICE GOLDHABER, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, U.S.A.; and VALENTINE L. TELEGDI, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, Switzerland, and California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA, for their separate seminal contributions to nuclear and particle physics, particularly those concerning the weak interactions involving leptons.

1992

JOSEPH H. TAYLOR, Jr., Princeton University, Princeton, U.S.A., for his discovery of an orbiting radio pulsar and its exploitation to verify the general theory of relativity to high precision.

1993

BENOIT B. MANDELBROT, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, U.S.A., by recognizing the widespread occurrence of fractals and developing mathematical tools for describing them, he has changed our view of nature.

1994/5

VITALY L. GINZBURG, Lebedev Physical Institute, Moscow, Russia, for his contributions to the theory of superconductivity and to the theory of high-energy processes in astrophysics; and YOICHIRO NAMBU, University of Chicago, Chicago, U.S.A. for his contribution to elementary particle theory, including recognition of the role played by spontaneous symmetry-breaking in analogy with superconductivity theory, and the discovery of the color symmetry of the strong interactions.

1996/7

JOHN ARCHIBALD WHEELER, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, and University of Texas at Austin, USA., for his seminal contributions to black holes physics, to quantum gravity, and to the theories of nuclear scattering and nuclear fission.

1998

YAKIR AHARONOV, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel, and University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, U.S.A.; and Sir MICHAEL V. BERRY, Bristol University, Bristol, United Kingdom, for the discovery of quantum topological and geometrical phases. specifically the Aharonov-Bohm effect, the Berry phase, and their incorporation into many fields of physics.

1999

DAN SHECHTMAN, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel, for the experimental discovery of quasi-crystals, non-periodic solids having long-range order, which inspired the exploration of a new fundamental state of matter.

2000

RAYMOND DAVIS Jr., University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York, USA; and MASATOSHI KOSHIBA, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, for their pioneering observations of astronomical phenomena by detection of neutrinos, thus creating the emerging field of neutrino astronomy.

2002/3

BERTRAND I. HALPERIN, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., USA; and ANTHONY J. LEGGETT, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, USA, for key insights into the broad range of condensed matter physics: Leggett on superfluidity of the light helium isotope and macroscopic quantum phenomena; and Halperin on two- dimensional melting, disordered systems and strongly interacting electrons.

2004

ROBERT BROUT, FRANCOIS ENGLERT, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium; and PETER W. HIGGS, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom, for pioneering work that has led to the insight of mass generation, whenever a local gauge symmetry is realized asymmetrically in the world of sub-atomic particles.

2005

DANIEL KLEPPNER, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, for groundbreaking work in atomic physics of hydrogenic systems, including research on the hydrogen maser, Rydberg atoms and Bose-Einstein condensation.

2006/7

ALBERT FERT, Unité Mixte de Physique CNRS-Thalès, Orsay, France; and PETER GRUENBERG, Institut fuer Festkoerperforschung (IFF), Forschungszentrum Juelich, Juelich, Germany, for their independent discovery of the giant magnetoresistance phenomenon (GMR), thereby launching a new field of research and applications known as spintronics, which utilizes the spin of the electron to store and transport information.

2010

JOHN F. CLAUSER, J.F. Clauser & Assoc., Walnut Creek, CA, USA; ALAIN ASPECT, Institut d’Optique, Palaiseau, France; and ANTON ZEILINGER, University of Vienna & Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria; for their fundamental conceptual and experimental contributions to the foundations of quantum physics, specifically an increasingly sophisticated series of tests of Bell’s inequalities or extensions there of using entangled quantum states.

2011

MAXIMILIAN HAIDER, CEOS GmbH and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany; Prof. HARALD ROSE, Carl Zeiss Senior Professor, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany; and KNUT URBAN, Research Centre Jülich, Jülich, Germany, RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany; for their development of aberration-corrected electron microscopy, allowing the observation of individual atoms with picometer precision, thus revolutionizing materials science.

2012

JACOB D. BEKENSTEIN, Former head of theoretical physics department, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, IL, for his work on black holes.

2013

PETER ZOLLER, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria; and IGNACIO CIRAC, Director of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, Garching, Germany, for groundbreaking theoretical contributions to quantum information processing, quantum optics and the physics of quantum gases.

2015

JAMES D. BJORKEN, Emeritus Professor at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford, CA, USA, for predicting scaling in deep inelastic scattering, leading to identification of nucleon’s pointlike constituents. He made a crucial contribution for elucidating the nature of the strong force. ROBERT P. KIRSHNER, Clowes Professor of Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, for creating the group, environment and directions that allowed his graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to uncover the acceleration in the expansion of the universe.

2016

YOSEPH IMRY, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, IL, for his work in mesoscopic physics – a branch of physics that studies objects that are smaller than macroscopic (visible to the naked eye) objects but bigger than atoms.

2017

MICHEL MAYOR, professor emeritus at the University of Geneva's Department of Astronomy, Geneva, SUI; and DIDIER QUELOZ, University of Geneva, Geneva, SUI, for the discovery of an extrasolar planet orbiting around a star similar to the sun.

2018

CHARLES H. BENNETT, Fellow, IBM Research, NY, USA; and GILES BRASSARD, Canada Research Chair, Université de Montréal, Montreal, BC, for their collaborative work in the rapidly expanding field of quantum information science.

2020
Allan H. MacDonald. University of Texas at Austin – USA.

2020
Pablo Jarillo-Herrero. Massachusetts Institute of Technology – USA.

2020
Rafi Bistritzer, Applied Materials – Israel.

2021

Giorgio Parisi, University of Roma I "La Sapienza," Italy.

2022

Anne L’Huillier, Lund University, Sweden.

2022

Ferenc Krausz, Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics, Germany.

2022

Paul Corkum, University of Ottawa, Canada.

2024

Martin Rees, Cambridge University, England, for fundamental contributions to high-energy astrophysics, galaxies and structure formation, and cosmology.

Sources: The Wolf Foundation.
Mitchell G. Bard and Moshe Schwartz. 1001 Facts Everyone Should Know About Israel. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005.

Photo: רונאלדיניו המלך licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

Israel Society & Culture: The Wolf Prize