© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
The winners of the 2024 Kavli Prize (not to be confused with the Kavli Medal) were announced on Wednesday. Eight winners were awarded for their contributions to astrophysics, neuroscience, and nanoscience.
The Kavli Prize is awarded in honour of Norwegian-American businessman and philanthropist Fred Kavli (1927-2013).
Born in Erejsford, Norway, Kavli moved to California in 1956 after getting an engineering degree. In the US, he began working for a company which built high-tech sensors for missiles, becoming its chief engineer within a year.
In 1958, he started his own enterprise, founding Kavlico. Today, the company is a leading manufacturer of pressure sensors and related systems, which are used in all kinds of industries, from aviation to home appliances. Kavlico’s pressure transducers (devices which convert pressure into an electric signal) are known for their high accuracy, stability, and reliability.
In 2000, Kavli sold his company for $ 340 million, and established the Kavli Foundation, with the aim to support wide-ranging basic research to improve the quality of life for people worldwide. The foundation runs 20 institutes which specialise in astrophysics, neuroscience, nanoscience, and theoretical physics.
“The Kavli Prizes are awarded in three areas: astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience — the largest, the smallest, and the most complex. I believe these prizes are in the most exciting fields for the twenty-first century and beyond,” Kavli said, while describing the prizes.
The inaugural prize was announced in 2008, and awarded to seven scientists. Till date, 73 scientists from 19 countries have been honoured with the biennial award. Ten of them have gone on to win the Nobel Prize.
In fact, the Kavli Prize was designed to be like the Nobel in the fields of astrophysics, neuroscience, and nanoscience. But it is more far-reaching in its outlook. As per the will of Alfred Nobel, the Nobel Prize is only awarded for achievements made “during the preceding year”. But the Kavli Prize does not operate under such a restriction.
The prize comprises a $1 million cash prize (per field), a scroll, and a medal, 7 cm in diameter. The award ceremony is more flamboyant than the one for the Nobel, with a red carpet rolled out for invitees.
Along with the US-based Kavli Foundation, the prize is given in partnership with the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, and the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research.
Three independent selection committees review entries to present a unanimous recommendation to The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Each committee comprises five members, who are nominated by science institutes around the world, including the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the French Academy of Sciences, Germany’s Max Planck Society, the National Academy of Sciences in the US, and the Royal Society in the UK.
The award ceremony this year is scheduled to take place on September 3, at the Oslo Concert Hall. The Norwegian Royal Family will be handing out the prizes.
All eight scientists awarded the Kavli Prize this year are professors at leading American universities.
ASTROPHYSICS: This year’s prize for astrophysics has been awarded to David Charbonneau of Harvard University, and Sara Seager, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The duo have been recognised for discoveries of exoplanets, and the characterisation of their atmosphere. The citation states that the contributions of Charbonneau and Seager included pioneering “methods for the detection of atomic species in planetary atmospheres and the measurement of their thermal infrared emission, thus setting the stage for finding the molecular fingerprints of atmospheres around both giant and rocky planets”.
NANOSCIENCE: Robert Langer of MIT, Armand Paul Alivisatos of the University of Chicago, and Chad Mirkin of Northwestern University were given the prize for nanoscience. Langer was recognised for his breakthrough idea of nano-engineering a material for the controlled release of therapeutic bio-molecules, which could help the development of controlled drug delivery systems to treat diseases like aggressive brain cancer, prostate cancer and schizophrenia. Alivisatos devised semiconductor crystals or “quantum dots” which could be used as multi-colour fluorescent probes in bio-imaging. Today these are used for diagnostic imaging of patients, and helping research in fundamental medicine and biology. Mirkin introduced the concept of spherical nucleic acid (SNA), a new class of nucleic acids that are densely functionalised and oriented spherically around a nanoparticle core. SNAs have wide-ranging use in areas like intracellular detection, gene regulation and immunotherapy.
NEUROSCIENCE: The prize in neuroscience has been awarded to Nancy Kanwisher of MIT, Winrich Freiwald of Rockefeller University, and Doris Tsao of the University of California at Berkeley. The trio have been awarded for their collective effort over decades to map the linkage between facial recognition and the brain. While Kinwisher identified the exact brain’s centre for face processing, Tsao and Freiwald took this knowledge forward using functional imaging and recording from individual brain cells to map out the neural architecture of the human brain.
