Today, Wednesday, June 1, 2022, the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters announced the names of the winners of the global "Kavli Prize".

The prize was won by:

1. Connie Aerts (Belgium), Jürgen Christensen Dalsgaard (Denmark) and Roger Ulrich (USA) were awarded the Kavli Prize in Astrophysics for their research contributions that revolutionized our understanding of the interior of stars.

2. David Alara (USA), Ralph Nozzo (USA), Jacob Sagiv (Israel) and George Whitesides (USA) have been awarded the Kavli Prize in Nanoscience for inventing a coating - at the molecular scale - of surfaces, allowing unprecedented control and geometry for surface properties.

3. Jean-Louis Mandel (France), Harry Orr, Christopher Walsh (USA) and Hoda Zoghbi (Lebanon / USA) received the Kavli Prize in Neuroscience for their discovery of the genetic basis of multiple brain disorders.

This award is given every two years to scientists who have changed our understanding of the large universe (astrophysics), the small universe (nanoscience), and the complex universe (neuroscience).

Each winning field will be awarded a $1 million prize, a gold medal, and a certificate of appreciation.

The winners will receive the award at a ceremony to be held in the Norwegian capital, Oslo, on the sixth of next September.

Prelude to the Nobel Prize

It is worth noting that this award was awarded for the first time in 2008. So far, 65 scientists have won this prestigious award, and later 10 of these scientists won the Nobel Prize in Science, including:

• Erdem Patabotian and David Julius, who received the Kavli Prize for Neurosciences in 2020. The two scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2021 for their role in discovering “temperature and touch receptors.”


• Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuel Charpentier, who received the Kavli Prize for Nanoscience in 2018. The two scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020 for their role in developing the CRISPR-Cas9 technology for genome editing.


• Kip Thorne and Rainer Weiss, who received the Kavli Prize in astrophysics in 2016. The two scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2017 for their role in discovering "gravitational waves."

Jennifer Doudna honored at Kavli Prize ceremonies in Norway.


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— UC Berkeley (@UCBerkeley) September 4, 2018

It is noteworthy that the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters receives nominations for this award from international heavyweights academies and other similar scientific organizations, such as the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the French Academy of Sciences, the Max Planck Society in Germany, the National Academy of Sciences in the United States, and the Royal Society in the United Kingdom.

The Academy assigns 3 independent committees to review and discuss the received nominations, and then submit the recommendations that have won their consensus to the Academy.

The Kavli Prize was established in 2005 through a joint project between the Norwegian academy of science and letters, the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, and the Kavli Foundation. foundation).

The Kavli Prize is one of the early activities launched by the Foundation with the aim of honoring scientists and appreciating distinguished research.

She was awarded her first prize in 2008.