Academy Members Earn Wolf Prizes in Medicine and the Arts

January 22, 2001—Academy Fellow Alexander Varshavsky (California Institute of Technology) has been named a recipient of the Wolf Foundation Prize in medicine. He will share the award with Professor Avram Hershko of the Technion in Haifa, Israel. The two were honored for their discovery of the ubiquitin system of intercellular protein degradation and the crucial functions of this system in cell regulation. The achievement of these two scientists "impacts virtually all aspects of modern biology," the Wolf prize jury noted.

Born in Russia in 1947, Varshavsky studied chemistry and biology in Moscow and Massachusetts and has been at the California Institute of Technology since 1992. He has won several prizes in conjunction with Professor Hershko, including the Albert Lasker Award and the Alfred Sloan Prize, and is widely recognized as a leader in the field of intercellular research. He has been a Fellow of the Academy since 1987.

Siza To Recieve Wolf Prize in the Arts

The Wolf Prize in the arts was awarded to Foreign Honorary Member Alvaro Siza, whose work with optical illusions has invigorated the field of architectural design. Siza's buildings have garnered international recognition and a mass of awards, including the Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design from the Harvard Design School and the Pritzker Prize in 1992.

Siza was elected to the Academy in 1992.

The Wolf Prizes were established by the late German-born inventor and diplomat Dr. Ricardo Wolf and are awarded annually in the fields of agriculture, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, physics, and the arts. The awards carry a $100,000 cash prize each and will be presented in the Knesset by Israeli President Moshe Katsav on May 13th. Click here for a complete list of Fellows who have received the Wolf Prize or see this year's Wolf Prize winners in chemistry and math.

For more information, please call Phyllis Bendell at (617) 576-5047 or email pbendell@amacad.org.

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