Fellow K. Barry Sharpless Awarded Wolf Prize in Chemistry

January 15, 2001—Academy Fellow K. Barry Sharpless (Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California) has been named a recipient of the 2001 Wolf Foundation Prize in chemistry. He shares the award with Henri B. Kagan (Paris-Sud University, France) and Ryori Noyori (Nagoya University, Japan). The three scientists independently discovered a potentially life-and-death difference between right-handed and left-handed molecules, which appear to be mirror images of each other. Such molecules are called chiral molecules.

The Wolf Foundation was established in 1976 by Dr. Ricardo Wolf (1887-1981), inventor, diplomat, and philanthropist, and his wife Francisca Subirana-Wolf (1900-1981), "to promote science and art for the benefit of mankind." Based in Israel, the Wolf Foundation awards five science prizes each year, in agriculture, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, and physics. Each award carries a $100,000 prize. The foundation also gives an annual prize in the arts.

Sharpless, elected to the Academy in 1984, joins 20 Fellows and Foreign Honorary members who are previous winners of the chemistry prize. Click here for a complete list of Fellows who have received the Wolf Prize or see this year's Wolf Prize winners in math, medicine, and the arts

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

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