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May 28, 2008 - Seven members and foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine are the first recipients of the Kavli prizes in nanoscience, neuroscience, and astrophysics. The new prizes, funded by entrepreneur and philanthropist Fred Kavli, were awarded today by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in partnership with the Kavli Foundation and the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research.
Louis Brus of Columbia University and Sumio Iijima of Meijo University (Japan) share the $1 million nanoscience prize for their respective discoveries of colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals, also known as quantum dots, and carbon nanotubes.
Sten Grillner of the Karolinska Institute (Sweden), Thomas Jessell of Columbia University, and Pasko Rakic of Yale University School of Medicine received the $1 million award in neuroscience for research on the development and functioning of the networks of cells in the brain and spinal cord.
The $1 million astrophysics prize was awarded jointly to Maarten Schmidt of the California Institute of Technology and Donald Lynden-Bell of Cambridge University (England) for their work to understand quasars.