TWAS Announces 2010 Prize Winners

Francisco Alfonso LARQUE-SAAVEDRA, Centro de Investigación Científica de Yucatán, A.C. (CICY), Mérida, Mexico, and Ibrokhim ABDURAKHMONOV, Center of Genomic Technologies, Institute of Genetics and Plant Experimental Biology (IG&PEB), Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan, share the 2010 TWAS Prize in the Agricultural Sciences. Larque-Saavedra is honoured for his pioneering work on the effect of salicylates on plant physiology and bioproductivity. Abdurakhmonov is recognized for his fundamental contribution to understanding genetic diversity and its exploitation in cotton genome.

Satyajit MAYOR, National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute for Fundamental Research (TIFR), Bangalore, India, and CHENG Soo-Chen, Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica, Nankang, Taiwan, China, share the 2010 TWAS Prize in Biology. Mayor is honoured for his fundamental contribution towards providing a new framework to understand membrane organization in living cells, and identifying new modes of endocytosis in metazoan cells. Cheng is recognized for her contribution to understanding the molecular mechanism of pre-mRNA splicing.

YANG Dan, Department of Chemistry, University of Hong Kong, China, and Santanu BHATTACHARYA, Department of Organic Chemistry, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, share the 2010 TWAS Prize in Chemistry. Yang is honoured for her significant contributions to the development of novel methods for the synthesis of bioactive natural products and probes for biomedical research. Bhattacharya is recognized for his path-breaking contributions to bio-organic and supramolecular chemistry, in particular the molecular design of lipids for gene delivery, DNA-recognizing molecules, micelles, vesicles, low molecular mass gelators and nanocomposites.

Anil K. GUPTA, Department of Geology & Geophysics, Indian Institute of Technology, India, and Alexander W.A. KELLNER, Paleovertebrate Sector, Department of Geology and Paleontology, National Museum, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, share the 2010 TWAS Prize for Earth Sciences. Gupta is honoured for his fundamental contribution to the understanding of the past variability in the Indian summer monsoon on multidecadal to centennial time scales. Kellner is recognized for his contribution to unravelling the biodiversity and the ecosystems that existed in past periods of our planet based on his detailed investigations of fossils.

Vivek BORKAR, School of Technology and Computer Science, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India, and Edgar ZANOTTO, Vitreous Materials Laboratory, Federal University of São Carlos, Brazil, share the 2010 TWAS Prize in the Engineering Sciences. Borkar is honoured for his seminal contributions to the theory and the algorithms for time-averaged ('ergodic') control, inclusive of situations involving additional constraints, noisy observations or model uncertainty. Zanotto is recognized for his fundamental contributions to the understanding of glass crystallization and the development of novel glass-ceramics.

Manindra AGRAWAL, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India, and Carlos Gustavo TAMM DE ARAUJO MOREIRA, Instituto de Matemática Pura e Aplicada, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, share the 2010 TWAS Prize in Mathematics. Agarwal is honoured for his discovery of a novel characterization of prime numbers leading to a deterministic and efficient way of testing primality of a number. Moreira is recognized for his fundamental contribution to the study of the interplay between fractal geometry and dynamical bifurcations.

Gabriel Adrián RABINOVICH, Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental, Buenos Aires, Argentina, has won the 2010 TWAS Prize in the Medical Sciences for his pioneering contribution to our understanding of the role of protein-glycan interactions in controlling inflammation and cancer, leading to the identification of novel therapeutic targets.

XUE Qi-Kun, Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, is the recipient of the 2010 TWAS Prize in Physics. He is recognized for his outstanding contribution to the discovery of novel physical properties of thin metal films modulated by quantum size effects with atomic-layer precision.