Recipients of TWAS Awards and Prizes

One of TWAS's main objective is to recognize excellence in scientific research in the developing world. Since 1985 the Academy has awarded prizes to individual researchers in the South.

From 1985 to 2003, four "TWAS Awards in Basic Sciences" were assigned each year. In 2003 these were merged with the "TWNSO Prizes in Applied Sciences" to form the "TWAS Prizes". These are conferred annually in eight scientific fields. For information about the current programme, please see TWAS 2014 Prizes.

All researchers who have been honoured with a TWAS Award in Basic Sciences or a TWAS Prize are listed below.

1985 TWAS Award Winners

On Sunday, 26 October 1986 in Trieste, Italy, the TWAS awards for 1985 were presented to the following scientists:

Physics
E.C.G. Sudarshan, Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Madras, India, for his fundamental contributions to the understanding of the weak nuclear force, in particular for his part in the formulation of the Universal V-A Theory of Sudarshan and Marshak.

Chemistry
Leopoldo De Meis, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for his fundamental studies on the function of the Ca2+-ATPase of the sarcoplasmic reticulum with particular regard to the mechanisms of energy transfer in biological membranes.

Chemistry
Salimuzzaman Siddiqi, H.E.J. Research Institute of Chemistry, Karachi, Pakistan, for his fundamental contributions in the chemistry of Rauwolfia alkaloids.

Mathematics
Liao Shan Tao, Peking University, Beijing, China, for his fundamental contributions in two different areas of mathematics: Periodic transformation of spheres, and the qualitative theory of dynamics.

1986 TWAS Award Winners

On Monday, 14 September 1987 in Beijing, China, the TWAS awards for 1986 were presented to the following scientists:

Physics
Zhao Zhong-xian, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, for his fundamental and pioneering contributions to high temperature superconductivity, in particular for achieving superconductivity above liquid nitrogen temperature in Ba-Y-Cu-O system.

Chemistry
Saad S.M. Hassan, Qatar University, Qatar / Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt, for his fundamental contributions to modern analytical chemistry, in particular for developing new simple and selective micromethods for the analysis of pharmaceutical and biomedical compounds.

Biology
Mysore A. Viswamitra, Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore, India, for his fundamental contributions to the understanding of DNA structure, in particular for his discovery of sequence dependent fine structure in DNA segments in single crystals.

Mathematics
Mauricio M. Peixoto, Brazilian Academy of Sciences, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for his fundamental and pioneering study of structural stability and dynamical systems, in particular for proving that flows on closed surfaces are generically structurally stable.

1987 TWAS Award Winners

On Monday, 3 October 1988 in Trieste Italy, the TWAS awards for 1987 were presented to the following scientists:

Physics
Cesar Mansueto Giulio Lattes, Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Fisicas, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for his fundamental contributions to high energy physics and in particular for the discovery of natural and artificial mesons.

Chemistry
Chuang-Tian Chen, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Fuzhou, Fujian, China P.R., for his outstanding contribution to the development of new nonlinear optical materials, the formulation of a quantum chemical theory that guides the search for such materials and the discovery of beta barium borate and lithium triborate.

Biology
Adolfo Martinez-Palomo, Centro de Investigacion y de Estudios Avanzados del IPN, Mexico D.F. Mexico, for his fundamental contributions to the knowledge of the cell biology of cancer cells and parasites.

Mathematics
Mudambai Seshachalu Narasimhan, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bombay, India, for his fundamental contributions to mathematics in the areas of algebraic geometry, differential geometry, representation theory of semi-simple groups and partial differential equations.

1988 TWAS Award Winners

On Monday, 15 October 1990 in Caracas, Venezuela, the TWAS awards for 1988 were presented to the following scientists:

Physics
Govind Swarup, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Poona University Campus, Ganeshkind, Pune, India, for his fundamental contributions in the field of extragalactic radio astronomy and cosmology, in particular for the ingenious designs of the Ooty Radio Telescope and the Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope in India.

Chemistry
Sukh Dev, Indian Institute of Technology, Hauz Khas, New Delhi, India, for his fundamental contributions to natural products chemistry, in particular for developing new products such as Guggulipid, a useful hypocholesterolemic drug which is currently being exploited commercially.

Biology
Francisco José Barrantes, Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Bahía Blanca, Universidad Nacional del Sur, Argentina, for his fundamental contributions to the understanding of the molecular structure and dynamics of acetylcholine receptors.

Mathematics
Jacob Palis, Instituto de Matemática Pura e Aplicada (IMPA), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for his fundamental contributions to stability and bifurcation theories in dynamical systems, in particular for the development of a homoclinic bifurcation theory based on fractional dimensions.

Basic Medical Sciences
Manuel Elkin Patarroyo, Institute of Immunology, Hospital San Juan de Dios, Bogotá, Colombia, for his discovery of the first synthetic vaccine for human use against the asexual blood stages of P. falciparum malaria.

1990* TWAS Award Winners

* For administrative reasons, in 1989 the TWAS Awards procedures were modified so as to define each Award according to the year for which it is announced. As a result of this, the "1989 TWAS Awards" became the "1990 TWAS Awards".

On Monday, 23 November 1992 in Kuwait City, Kuwait, the TWAS awards for 1990 were presented to the following scientists:

Physics
Tirupattur V. Ramakrishnan, Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, for his fundamental contributions to the understanding of the freezing of liquids, electron localization in disordered solids, and mixed valent systems.

Chemistry
Mohammed Hilmy Elnagdi, epartment of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt, for his fundamental contributions in heterocyclic chemistry, and in particular for synthesizing a variety of compounds related to pyrazoles, thiazoles and oxazoles.

Biology
Eduardo Hugo Rapoport, Departamento de Ecología, Universidad Nacional de Comahue, Bariloche, Argentina, for his fundamental work in soil biology, in the fields of ecology of invasions and urban ecology, and particularly for his enlightening contributions to biogeography and seminal work on the theory of spatial distribution of species.

Mathematics
Wu Wen-Tsun, Institute of Systems Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, for his fundamental work on algebraic topology, including the topology of fibre bundles, cohomology operations, and strong imbedding invariants which led to many geometrical applications, and on the mathematical foundation of theorem-proving by computer, with effective applications.

Basic Medical Sciences
Sergio Henrique Ferreira, Universidade de São Paulo, Facultade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brazil, for his fundamental studies: a) on the components of the Bothrops Jararaca venom which led to the discovery of anti-hypertensive converting enzyme inhibitors, and b) on inflammatory hyperalgesia which led to the understanding of the mechanisms of action of the peripheral analgesics, paving the way for the development of new analgesics.

1991 TWAS Award Winners

On Monday, 23 November 1992 in Kuwait City, Kuwait, the TWAS awards for 1991 were presented to the following scientists:

Physics
Francisco de la Cruz, Centro Atómico Bariloche, San Carlos de Bariloche, Rio Negro, Argentina, for his fundamental work in the field of low temperature physics, and in particular for his contributions that led to a better understanding of the phenomenology of traditional and new superconductors.

Chemistry
Otto Richard Gottlieb, Instituto de Química, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, for his fundamental contributions to the interdisciplinary synthesis of biology and chemistry which he applied to the understanding of plant evolution, classification and ecology.

Biology
Ramon R. Latorre, Centro de Estudios Científicos de Santiago, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile, for his fundamental studies on ion transport through ion channels and, in particular, for his contribution in the field of ion channel reconstitution in artificial bilayers.

Mathematics
Madabusi S. Raghunathan, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bombay, India, for his fundamental contributions to the theory of discontinuous groups and algebraic groups, and in particular for his work on cohomology of arithmetic groups, the congruence subgroup problem and principal bundles which constitute substantial progress in these areas.

Basic Medical Sciences
Leonidas de Mello Deane and Maria José von Paumgartten Deane, Oswaldo Cruz Institute, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for their fundamental contributions to the knowledge of the epidemiology of endemic parasitic diseases of the New World, and in particular Malaria, the Leishmaniases and American Trypanosomiasis.

1992 TWAS Award Winners

On Tuesday, 2 November 1993 in Trieste, Italy, the TWAS awards for 1992 were presented to the following scientists:

Physics
Narendra Kumar, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, for his fundamental contributions to the understanding of electron localization and non-selfaveraging resistance fluctuation due to quenched disorder, quantum Brownian motion on dynamically disordered lattices, and time-scale dependent energy transport in dielectric glasses.

Chemistry
Manapurathu V. George, Photochemistry Research Unit, Regional Research Laboratory (CSIR), Trivandrum, India, for his fundamental contributions in several areas of organic chemistry and photochemistry, and in particular for his work on the phototransformations of different classes of selected organic substrates.;

Biology
Tsou Chen-Lu, National Laboratory of Biomacromolecules, Institute of Biophysics, Beijing, China, for his fundamental contributions to basic enzyme studies, and in particular for the establishment of quantitative relations between side chain modification and enzyme inactivation and the kinetics of enzyme modification reactions.

Mathematics
Manfredo do Carmo, Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics (IMPA), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for his fundamental contributions to the study of stability of minimal submanifolds and of hypersurfaces of constant mean curvature.

Basic Medical Sciences
Juan Carlos Fasciolo, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina, for his fundamental contributions to the understanding of the humoral mechanism of arterial hypertension, and in particular for recognizing that renal ischemia induces renin secretion, that acting upon a plasma protein gives rise to angiotensin, a peptide with strong vasoconstrictor effect.

1993 TWAS Award Winners

On Monday, 18 September 1995 in Abuja, Nigeria, the TWAS awards for 1993 were presented to the following scientists:

Physics
K.H. Kuo (Kexin Guo), Beijing Laboratory of Electron Microscopy, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, for his fundamental contributions to the structural studies of quasicrystals and their crystalline approximants, and in particular for the studies of subtle features of novel rotational symmetries and quasiperiodicities.

Chemistry
• Animesh Chakravorty, Department of Inorganic Chemistry, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Calcutta, India, for his contributions to inorganic chemistry, and in particular for his illuminating work on variable valence and redox transformations involving d-block coordination compounds.
• Giuseppe Cilento, Department of Biochemistry, Institute of Chemistry, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, for his fundamental contribution to biochemiexcitation, and in particular for demonstrating that electronically excited triplet species can be generated in high yields in appropriate enzymatic systems, thereby promoting photochemical processes in the absence of light.

Biology
Luis Rafael Herrera-Estrella, Centro de Investigacion y de Estudios Avanzados del I.P.N., Unidad Irapuato, Irapuato, Guanajuato, Mexico, for his outstanding contribution to the development of plant genetic engineering and gene regulation in plant cells and their application to solving agricultural problems in developing countries.

Mathematics
Chang Kung-Ching, Department of Mathematics, Peking University, Beijing, China, for his fundamental contributions to critical point theory, and in particular the infinite dimensional Morse theory and its applications to nonlinear differential equations.

Basic Medical Sciences
Etim Moses Essien, Department of Haematology, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria, for his fundamental contribution to the studies of circulating platelet/malaria parasite interactions which have provided a better understanding of the disease; and for his pioneering studies of haemostatic actions of some extracts of Zanthozylum zanthozyloides, which have revealed their therapeutic potentials.

1994 TWAS Award Winners

On Monday, 18 September 1995 in Abuja, Nigeria, the TWAS awards for 1994 were presented to the following scientists:

Physics
Girish S. Agarwal, Physical Research Laboratory, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad, India, for his outstanding contributions to a wide variety of basic phenomena such as superradiance, optical resonance, bistability, vacuum field Rabi splitting, surface enhanced nonlinear and quantum electrodynamic processes and lasers without inversion.

Chemistry
• Padmanabhan Balaram, Molecular Biophysics Unit, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, for his outstanding contributions to the area of peptide research, particularly in the development of the use of conformationally constrained amino acids in polypeptide design and in delineating structure-function relationships for membrane channel-forming polypeptides.
• Huang Yao-Zeng, Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China, for his fundamental and pioneering contributions in the areas of organometallic and organometalloid chemistry, in particular for his work in the field of organic chemistry of group 15 and 16 elements and the development of the first catalytic Wittig type reaction and the clarification of the mechanisms of reactions of organoantimony compounds.

Biology
Armando J. Parodi, Institute of Biochemical Research, Fundación Campomar, Buenos Aires, Argentina, for his fundamental contributions to the field of biochemistry and in particular for unravelling a basic metabolic pathway leading to the formation of glycoproteins and polysaccharides in mammals, fungi and parasitic protozoa.

Mathematics
Ricardo Mañé, Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics (IMPA), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for his pioneering research on the ergodic theory of differentiable dynamical systems, through which he achieved fundamental contributions to various problems in this field, in particular for his solution to the problem of characterizing structurally stable systems.

Basic Medical Sciences
Suhayl J. Jabbur, Faculty of Medicine, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon, for his fundamental research on the projections of and interactions between the central somatic sensory pathways and for the discovery of a spinal-brainstem-spinal loop involved in the modulation of pain.

1995 TWAS Award Winners

On Tuesday, 26 November 1996 in Trieste, Italy, the TWAS awards for 1995 were presented to the following scientists:

Physics
• Ramanath Cowsik, Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore, India, for his seminal contributions to high energy astrophysics, gravitation, neutrino physics and cosmology and in particular for precisely measuring the bb-decay lifetime of 128Te, for the upperbounds on neutrino masses from cosmology and for showing that weakly interacting particles with mass will form a gravitationally dominant background of dark matter in the universe and trigger the formation of galaxies.
• Jayme Tiomno, Centre Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for his pioneering and fundamental contributions in the discovery, and to the understanding of the universality of weak interactions first represented by the Tiomno-Wheeler triangle; and for the prediction of the existence of K-star, the first meson resonance discovered.

Mathematics
• Ibrahim A. Eltayeb, College of Science, Department of Mathematics & Statistics, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman, for his fundamental contributions to geophysical and environmental fluid dynamics, in particular for his discovery of the neutral stability curve for magneto-convection in a highly rotating top-heavy fluid, and for his notable contribution to the non-linear evolution of sand dunes.
• Carlos Segovia, Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina, for his outstanding work in Harmonic Analysis and in particular for his contributions to the theory of weighted norm inequalities, homogeneous spaces, extrapolation methods and commutator problems.

Biology
• Carlos S. Andreo, Centre for Studies on Photosynthesis and Biochemistry (CEFOBI), Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Rosario, Argentina, for his distinguished contributions to the field of plant biochemistry, in particular for his fundamental studies on photosynthetic energy conservation, regulation, mechanism of catalysis, chemical modification and expression of key enzymes of the C4 pathway of photosynthesis.
• Carlos Eduardo G. da Rocha Miranda, Carlos Chagas Filho Institute of Biophysics, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for his outstanding contributions to the understanding of the cortical processing of visual information in the primate brain that underlies form recognition, stimulus generalization and interhemispheric integration, and for his studies on the brain of the American opossum that led to an alternative model for mammalian visual research.

Basic Medical Sciences
• Dorairajan Balasubramanian, Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, India, for his outstanding contributions towards our understanding some of the molecular and cellular bases behind cataract formation in the eye lens and for suggesting possible dietary ways to attempt to postpone the onset of this blinding disease.
• Iván Antonio Izquierdo, Department of Biochemistry, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil, for his fundamental contributions to the understanding of mechanisms involved in memory formation, storage and retrieval.

1996 TWAS Award Winners

On Monday, 8 September 1997 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the TWAS awards for 1996 were presented to the following scientists:

Physics
• Fan Hai-fu, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, for his outstanding contributions to the solution of the phase problem in crystallography, in particular for the development of methods for solving various kinds of phase ambiguity, methods for direct determination of incommensurate modulated structures and methods for image processing in high resolution electron microscopy.
• Enrique Tirapegui, Departamento de Física, Facultad de Ciencias Físicas y Matemáticas, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile, for his fundamental contributions to the development and applications of the functional integral approach to stochastic processes, and in particular for his numerous and relevant contributions to statistical mechanics and nonlinear physics.

Chemistry
• Enrique J. Baran, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Departamento de Química, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, La Plata, Argentina, for his pioneering work in the development of the field of bioinorganic chemistry in his country and for his fundamental research on the physicochemical properties of oxidic materials.
• Henrique Eisi Toma, Instituto de Química, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, for his numerous contributions to the development of the chemistry of iron and ruthenium compounds and to the design of supramolecular species based on polymetallic complexes.

Mathematics
• César Leopoldo Camacho, Instituto de Matemática Pura e Aplicada (IMPA), Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil, for his fundamental contributions to mathematics especially in the establishment of essential analytic and geometric properties of solutions of complex differential equations.
• K.R. Parthasarathy, Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi, India, for his significant contributions to both classical and quantum probability and in particular for the development of the quantum stochastic calculus and the unravelling of deep connections that exist between stochastic processes, free quantum fields, group representations and operator algebras.

Biology
• Juan Carlos Castilla, acultad de Ciencias Biologicas, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile, for his outstanding contributions to experimental marine ecology and the conservation, rational management and sustainable development of coastal marine resources.
• Asis Datta, School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, for his outstanding contributions to the field of yeast and plant molecular biology, in particular for unravelling two molecular determinants of virulence and demonstrating the existence of a signal transduction pathway in C. albicans; and for isolating two novel genes encoding oxalate decarboxylase and seed-specific protein with an aim to improve the nutritional quality of cereals and legumes.

Basic Medical Sciences
Bhola Nath Dhawan, Centre for Advanced Research in Traditional Medicine, Central Drug Research Institute, Chattar Manzil, Lucknow, India, for his significant contributions in evolving appropriate strategies for optimal exploitation of medicinal plants, and in particular for his key role in developing seven new synthetic and plant based drugs each in a different therapeutic area, and for his pioneering studies on the regulation of CNS activity by biogenic amines.

1997 TWAS Award Winners

On Wednesday, 9 December 1998 in Trieste, Italy, the TWAS awards for 1997 were presented to the following scientists:

Physics
• Luis F. Rodríguez, Instituto de Astronomía, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Unidad Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico, for his fundamental contributions to the understanding of the phenomena associated with the formation of new stars, in particular the Herbig-Haro objects and bipolar outflows, and for the discovery of superluminal motions in our Galaxy.
• Ashoke Sen, Mehta Research Institute of Mathematics and Mathematical Physics, Allahabad, India, for his outstanding contributions towards establishing the existence of strong-weak coupling duality symmetry in field theory and string theory.

Chemistry
Reuben Jih-Ru Hwu, Department of Chemistry, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, China, for his pioneering research in organic chemistry, in particular for the synthesis of many compounds with important biological activity, and for his innovative contributions to silicon chemistry, including the invention of novel reactions and reagents, as well as the establishment of the concepts of "Counterattack Reagent" and "Bulky Proton".

Biology
Francisco Bolívar-Zapata, Instituto de Biotecnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico, for his fundamental contributions to the development of recombinant DNA tools that allowed for the first time, the cloning and expression in bacteria of synthetic genes coding for the human hormones somatostatin and insulin.

Basic Medical Sciences
• Eduardo H. Charreau, Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental, Buenos Aires, Argentina, for his fundamental research in the dissection of the molecular events that induce the development of experimental mammary adenocarcinomas by progestin agents, through his studies of the expression of growth factors and their receptors.
• Charles O.N. Wambebe, National Institute of Pharmaceutical Research and Development, Idu-Abuja, Nigeria, for his significant contributions to the understanding of the role of endogenous monoamines and neuropeptides in sleep mechanism, seizures, temperature regulation, anxiety and seizure disorders and in particular for the development of drugs from local plants for the treatment of sickle cell anaemia, peptic ulcer, tropical skin infection and diabetes

1998 TWAS Award Winners

On Monday, 22 November 1999 in Dakar, Senegal, the TWAS awards for 1998 were presented to the following scientists:

Physics
B. Sriram Shastry, Physics Department, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, for his fundamental contributions to the physics of interacting quantum many body systems, especially exact solutions of one dimensional fermion and quantum spin models, and the phenomenology of high Tc superconductors.

Chemistry
Biman Bagchi, Solid State and Structural Chemistry Unit, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, for his pioneering contributions to the front-line area of physical chemistry pertaining to liquid state dynamics which have led to our understanding of a wealth of experimental phenomena.

Mathematics
Marcelo Viana, Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IMPA), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for his fundamental contribution to the global structure of dynamical systems, in particular to the theory of chaotic attractors and their statistical properties, as well as the theory of bifurcation of dynamics, especially homoclinic bifurcations.

Biology
Gabriel Guarneros, Department of Genetics and Molecular Biology, Centre for Research and Advanced Studies, National Polytechnical Institute (IPN), Mexico City, Mexico, for his fundamental contributions to the characterization of novel genetic signals which regulate messenger RNA translation in prokaryotes.

Basic Medical Sciences
Felix Konotey-Ahulu, Cromwell Hospital, London, UK, and Health Research Unit, Ministry of Health, Ghana, for his outstanding contribution to knowledge in Sickle Cell Disease and other Haemoglobinopathies, and in African Anthropogenetics as well as for stressing ethical values in genetic programmes

1999 TWAS Award Winners

On Monday, 23 October 2000 in Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran, the TWAS awards for 1999 were presented to the following scientists:

Physics
Nai-ben Ming, State Key Laboratory of Solid State, Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China, for design and fabrication of periodic and quasiperiodic dielectric superlattices and realization of second harmonic generation (SHG), multiple wavelength SHG, third harmonic generation, optical stability, polariton excitation, and ultrasonic generation with high frequency.

Chemistry
Darshan Ranganathan, Discovery Laboratory, Organic Division III, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad, India, for her outstanding contributions to bioorganic chemistry, particularly in supramolecular assemblies, molecular design and chemical simulations of key biological processes, as well as for designing hybrid peptides leading to a new class of cyclic receptors and membrane ion carriers.

Mathematics
Servet Martinez, Depto. de Ingeniería Matemática, Facultad de Ciencias Físicas y Matemáticas, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile, for his significant contributions in probability theory, in particular conditionally invariant distributions in Markov processes and dynamical systems, and for the study of deep connections between ultrametricity and potential theory.

Biology
Raghavendra Gadagkar, Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, for his work on indigenous Indian wasp species that has made fundamental contributions to our understanding of the origins of social life among insects.

Basic Medical Sciences
Esper A. Cavalheiro, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Escola Paulista de Medicina, Depto. de Neurologia e Neurocirurgia, São Paulo, Brazil, for his fundamental contributions to the field of neuroscience, in particular for the development of an experimental model that has advanced our understanding of basic mechanisms of epilepsy.

2000 TWAS Award Winners

On Monday, 21 October 2002 in New Delhi, India, the TWAS awards for 2000 were presented to the following scientists:

Physics
Ajay Kumar Sood, Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, for his outstanding experimental contributions to such highly contemporary aspects of condensed matter physics as confined and interface phonons in superlattices, squeezed phonon states, fullerene-related systems, and physics of soft condensed matter.

Chemistry
Gautam R. Desiraju, School of Chemistry, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India, for his pioneering contributions to the area of crystal engineering, the designed synthesis of solid state supramolecular entities, and for increasing the awareness of the properties and structural consequences of the weak hydrogen bond.

Mathematics
Weiping Zhang, Nankai Institute of Mathematics, Nankai University, Tianjin, China, for his various contributions to index theory, including joint works with Bismut on Ray-Singer analytic torsions and with Youliang Tian on the geometric quantization conjecture, and his recent work on the Kervaire semi-characteristic.

Biology
Alberto C. Frasch, Instituto de Investigaciones Biotechnologicas, Universidad Nacional de San Martin, C.C. 30, 1650 San Martin, Argentina, for his work in molecular biology of Trypanosoma cruzi, the agent of the American endemic infection Chagas disease, which led to the identification of new molecules and mechanisms in the host-parasite relationship.

Basic Medical Sciences
Rabia Hussain, Department of Microbiology, The Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan, for her contributions to immunology of infectious diseases, with special reference to classes and subclasses of antibody recognition and its usefulness in diagnosis and pathogenesis in filiariasis, tuberculosis and leprosy patients.

2001 TWAS Award Winners

On Monday, 21 October 2002 in New Delhi, India, the TWAS awards for 2001 were presented to the following scientists:

Physics
Luiz Davidovich, Institute of Physics, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for his contributions to quantum optics in basic laser theory and cavity quantum electrodynamics and for devising and analysing experiments on the foundations of quantum mechanics.

Chemistry
Kimoon Kim, Department of Chemistry, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang, Korea, Rep., for his outstanding contributions to supramolecular chemistry in particular for his synthesis of such elaborate supramolecular architectures as polyrotaxanes, molecular necklaces and metal-organic open-frameworks applying principles of self-assembly and coordination chemistry.

Mathematics
Sundararaman Ramanan, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Colaba, Mumbai, India, for his fundamental contributions to algebraic geometry and differential geometry, in particular for his study of the moduli spaces of vector bundles on curves which has received wide application in mathematics and theoretical physics.

Biology
Avadhesha Surolia, Molecular Biophysics Unit, UGC Centre for Advanced Study, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, for his original contribution to lectin structure and function, dynamics and orientation of cell surface carbohydrates, drug and gene delivery and equilibrium folding of oligomeric proteins.

Basic Medical Sciences
Rodolfo R. Brenner, Institute of Biochemical Research, National University of La Plata, La Plata, Argentina, for his pioneering research in the resolution of the mechanism of polyunsaturated fatty acid biosynthesis in animals and their regulation by dietary components and hormones and their biochemical and physiological effects.

2002 TWAS Award Winners

On Thursday, 16 October 2003, in Beijing, China, the 2002 TWAS Awards in Basic Sciences were presented to the following scientists:

Physics
Deepak Dhar, Department of Theoretical Physics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India, for his many contributions to statistical physics, in particular for the exact solution of the abelian sandpile model and his studies on fractals.

Chemistry
Peng Shie-Ming, Department of Chemistry, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, China, for his seminal contributions to the synthesis and analysis of several novel inorganic complexes including metal string, quinonediimine metal and d^10 metal cluster complexes.

Mathematics
José Antonio de la Peña, Instituto de Matemáticas, Universidad Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico, DF, Mexico, for his fundamental contributions to the understanding of the structure of tame algebras and their module categories, particularly in the use of quadratic forms and geometric structure of module varieties.

Biology
Wang Zhizhen (Chih-Chen), Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, for her successful characterization of novel chaperone activity of protein disulfide isomerase and for demonstrating the cooperative function of isomerase and chaperone activities in the folding of disulfide-containing proteins.

Basic Medical Sciences
Ranulfo Romo, Instituto de Fisiología Celular, Universidad Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico, DF, Mexico, for advancing our knowledge of how the primate cerebral cortex conveys sensory information and uses this information to make decisions.

2003* TWAS Prize Winners

* In 2003 the "TWAS Awards in Basic Sciences" were merged with the "TWNSO Prizes in Applied Sciences" to form the "TWAS Prizes" that are conferred in eight scientific fields.
On Wednesday, 23 November 2004, in Trieste, Italy, the 2003 TWAS Prizes were presented to the following scientists:

Agricultural Sciences
Fu Ting-Dong, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China, for his outstanding contributions to the discovery and study of Polima cytoplasmic male sterility (Pol cms), self-incompatible lines and to the development and utilization of hybrid cultivars in rapeseed (Brassica napus).

Biology
Rafael Palacios de la Lama, Centro de Investigacion sobre Fijacion de Nitrogeno, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico, for his outstanding contributions in the area of genomic dynamics, genome architecture and natural genomic design in bacteria.

Chemistry
Eluvathingal Devassy Jemmis, School of Chemistry, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India, for his development of analogies in main group chemistry, electron counting rules for polyhedral molecules and their applications to boron, and studies in transitionmetal organometallics.

Earth Sciences
Kaigala Venkata Subbarao, Department of Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Powai, Mumbai, India, for his outstanding contributions to our understanding of the linkages between the oceanic and Deccan volcanism.

Engineering Sciences
Mayra de la Torre, Department of Biotechnology, CINVESTAV-IPN, Mexico City, Mexico, for her outstanding contributions to research and innovations in bioprocessing engineering for implementation of biotecnological processes in small Third World companies.

Mathematics
Welington Celso de Melo, Instituto de Matemática Pura e Aplicada (IMPA), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for his outstanding contributions to the description of the topological structure of one-dimensional dynamics.

Medical Sciences
Mayana Zatz, Centre for the Study of the Human Genome, Dept. of Biology, Institute of Biosciences, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, for her fundamental contributions to the study of neuromuscular disorders which led to the identification of new genes and enhanced the understanding of the mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of neuromuscular disorders.

Physics
Rodolfo Gambini, Instituto de Fisica, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de la Republica, Montevideo, Uruguay, for his contributions to the non-perturbative quantization of gauge theories and canonical quantum gravity.

2004 TWAS Prize Winners

On Wednesday, 30 November 2005, in Alexandria, Egypt, the 2004 TWAS Prizes were presented to the following scientists:

Agricultural Sciences
Mohammad J. Malakouti, Faculty of Agriculture, Tarbiat Modarres University, Tehran, Iran, for his innovative approaches to fertilizer application and for improving N:P:K ratios from 100:85:03 to 100:45:23 plus 2 percent micronutrients.

Biology
Jorge Kalil, School of Medicine, University of São Paulo, Brazil, for his fundamental contributions to the understanding of how infectious agents trigger and maintain human auto-immune diseases.

Chemistry
Miguel A. Blesa, National University of General San Martin, San Martin, Argentina, for his work on inorganic (metal) oxides in aqueous environments: mechanisms of dissolution and reprecipitation, adsorption and desorption, and catalysed reactions at the solid: water interface.

Earth Sciences
Adolpho J. Melfi, University of São Paulo, for his outstanding work in rock alteration, surface geochemistry and tropical soils.

Engineering Sciences
Li Aizhen, Shanghai Institute of Microsystems and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China, for her pioneering contributions to the growth and characterization of heterojunction semiconductor microstructures for electronic and photonic devices, in particular for achieving artificial nano-quantum structures by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE).

Mathematics
Long Yiming, Nankai Institute of Mathematics, Nankai University, Tianjin, China, for his fundamental contributions to Hamiltonian dynamics, in particular for establishing the index iteration theory for symplectic paths and deep studies on periodic solution orbits of Hamiltonian systems..

Medical Sciences
Shiv Kumar Sarin, Department of Gastroenterology, G.P. Pant Hospital, New Delhi, India, for his work in significantly enhancing our understanding of the pathophysiology and haemodynamics of non-cirrhotic portal hypertension, and classification and management of gastric varices, and for his introduction of band ligation for primary prophylaxis of variceal bleeding that entirely changed the concept of the management of portal hypertension.

Physics
Spenta R. Wadia, Department of Theoretical Physics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India, for his significant contributions to non-pertubative quantum field theory and string theory, in particular (i) in the use of the large N limit; (ii) two-dimensional gravity and non-critical string theory; and (iii) the treatment of black holes in string theory.

2005 TWAS Prize Winners

On Saturday, 2 September 2006, in Angra dos Reis, RJ, Brazil, the 2005 TWAS Prizes were presented to the following scientists:

Agricultural Sciences
Alex E. Bustillo Pardey, National Coffee Research Centre (CENICAFE), Manizales, Colombia, for his outstanding contributions to coffee environmental conservation through the development of a programme including large scale use of biological agents based on fungi and insect paraistoids to control the coffee berry borer.

Biology
• Yang Huanming, Beijing Genomics Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, for his outstanding achievements and contributions in genomics and bioinformatics research.
• Jerson L. Silva, Centro Nacional de Ressonancia Magnetica de Macromoleculas (CNRMA), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for his pioneering work with high pressure in biochemistry and structural biology, which has yielded new insights into protein folding, virus assembly and protein misfolding diseases.

Chemistry
Krishna N. Ganesh, Division of Organic Chemistry (Synthesis), National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India, for his contributions to molecular recognition based design, synthesis and bio-organic studies of novel chemically modified DNA and PNA with potential applications in therapeutics and diagnostics.

Earth Sciences
Zhu Rixiang, Paleomagnetism and Geochronology Laboratory, Institute of Geology and Geophysics (IGG), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, for his outstanding work on the Earth's ancient magnetic field, magnetic dating of the earliest artifacts in northeast Asia, and enviromagnetics.

Engineering Sciences
Mauricio Terrones, Advanced Materials Department, Instituto Potosino de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (IPICYT), San Luis Potosi, Mexico, for his outstanding contributions to the synthesis and characterization novel carbon based nano-materials.

Mathematics
Parimala Raman, School of Mathematics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, India, for her work on the quadratic analogue of Serre's conjecture, the triviality of principal homogeneous spaces of classical groups over cd-2 fields and u-invariant of p-adic function fields.

Medical Sciences
Shah M. Faruque, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research (ICDDR), Mohakhali, Dhaka, Bangladesh, for his contributions to understanding the natural phenomena associated with epidemics of cholera, a major public health problems in many developing countries.

Physics
Wang Enge, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, for his first synthesis of tubular graphite cones and nanobells, and his innovative study of formation and decay mechanisms in surface-based nanostructure.

2006 TWAS Prize Winners

On Tuesday, 13 November 2007, in Trieste, Italy, the 2006 TWAS Prizes were presented to the following scientists:

Agricultural Sciences
HEONG Kong-Luen, International Rice Research Institute, Los Baños, Philippines, for his pioneering work in combining insights from the biological and social sciences to improve integrated pest management to help millions of farmers reduce pesticide use.

Biology
Pedro LEÓN-AZOFEIFA, Center for Advanced Technologies (CENAT), San José, Costa Rica, for his fundamental discoveries in animal and human genetics, including the mapping of genes involved in deafness and familial amyloidosis.

Chemistry
CHE Chi-Ming, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China, for his outstanding contributions to molecular recognition-based design, synthesis, bioorganic and biophysical studies of novel chemically modified DNA and PNA with potential applications in therapeutics and diagnostics.

Earth Sciences
Rengaswamy RAMESH, Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, India, for his demonstration of the potential of stable isotopes for the recovery of palaeoclimatic and palaeomonsoon data from various natural archives.

Engineering Sciences
CHANG Chun-Yen, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, China, for his pioneering contributions to very large scale integration, opto-electronics, microwave devices and materials.

Mathematics
Claudio LANDIM, Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for his outstanding contributions to the theory of the hydrodynamic limit of interacting particle systems and the dynamical fluctuation theory of stationary non-equilibrium states.

Medical Sciences
Jacinto CONVIT, Institute of Biomedicine, Caracas, Venezuela, for his outstanding research into tropical diseases, including contributions to our understanding of the immunology of leprosy and leishmaniasis.

Physics
Dipankar Das SARMA, Centre for Advanced Materials, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Kolkata, India, for his fundamental contributions to our understanding of the electronic and magnetic properties of strongly correlated electronic materials based on his in-depth experimental and theoretical investigations.

2007 TWAS Prize Winners

On Monday, 10 November 2008, in Mexico City, Mexico, the 2007 TWAS Prizes were presented to the following scientists:

Agricultural Sciences
Muhammad Arshad, director, Institute of Soil and Environmental Sciences, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan, for his innovative contributions to the study of plant bio-fertilizers and their potential to improve crop production.

Biology
Lucia Mendonça Previato, professor, Instituto de Biofisica Carlos Chagas Filho at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, for her contributions to the understanding, treatment and prevention of Chagas disease.

Chemistry
Kankan Bhattacharyya, professor, physical chemistry department, Indian Association for his seminal contributions to ultrafast dynamics in organized and biological assemblies.

Earth Sciences
Paulo Artaxo, professor, Institute of Physics, University of São Paulo, for his outstanding work in understanding the role of biomass-burning aerosols on cloud processes and the radiation balance in the Amazon Basin.

Engineering Sciences
Lee Chih-Kung, professor, Institute of Applied Mechanics, National Taiwan University, Taipei, for his fundamental contributions to interdisciplinary system research in piezoelectricity, optics, micro electro-mechanical systems, nano-biomechanics and plasmonics.

Mathematics
Shrikrishna G. Dani, senior professor, School of Mathematics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, for his fundamental contributions to the study of flows on homogeneous spaces of Lie groups and of probability measures on Lie groups.

Medical Sciences
Sérgio Danilo Junho Pena, professor, Departamento de Bioquimica e Imunologia, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, for his contributions to human and parasite molecular genetics and to the understanding of the formation and structure of the Brazilian population.

Physics
Zhang Jie, president, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, for his significant contributions to the development of saturated x-ray lasers and to our understanding of the interaction between high-power lasers and matter.

2008 TWAS Prize Winners

On Tuesday, 20 October 2009, in Durban, South Africa, the 2008 TWAS Prizes were presented to the following scientists:

Agricultural Sciences
SHAW Jei-Fu, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan, China, for his outstanding contributions in biotechnology for extending the shelf-life of and adding value to agricultural produce.

Biology
Carlos ARIAS and Susana LÓPEZ, Institute of Biotechnology, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico, for their fundamental contributions to the understanding of virus-host cell interactions.

Chemistry
ZHAO Dongyuan, Department of Chemistry, Fudan University, Shanghai, China, for his outstanding research in the field of mesostructured materials and his discovery of families of ordered mesoporous molecular sieves.

Earth Sciences
SUN Jimin, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, for his fundamental contributions to the studies of desert evolution and aeolian deposits and to the understanding of long-term Cenozoic climatic changes in China.

Engineering Sciences
Ashutosh SHARMA, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India, for his fundamental and significant contributions to meso-mechanics, instabilities and self-organization in soft thin films, meso-patterning, wetting, adhesion and interfacial interactions.

Mathematics
Vasudevan SRINIVAS, School of Mathematics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India, for his basic contributions to algebraic geometry that have helped deepen our understanding of cycles, motives and K-theory.

Medical Sciences
Salim S. ABDOOL KARIM, Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa, Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa, for his exceptional and distinguished contributions in medicine and public health, specifically the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS.

Physics
• Predhiman Krishan KAW, Institute for Plasma Research, Bhat, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India, for pioneering contributions to nonlinear plasma physics especially as applied to thermonuclear fusion (tokamaks and laser plasmas) and non-neutral, dusty and quark-gluon plasmas.
• Ali Hani CHAMSEDDINE, Physics Department, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon, for his inventions of ten-dimensional supergravity and its interactions; the minimal supergravity standard model; and the spectral action principle in noncommutative geometry.

2009 TWAS Prize Winners

On Tuesday, 19 October 2010, in Hyderabad, India, the 2009 TWAS Prizes were presented to the following scientists:

Agricultural Sciences
YANG Huey-Lang, Center of Biotechnology, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, China, for his outstanding contributions to the understanding of fish immunology, invention of oral vaccine technology and application to warm water fish aquaculture.

Biology
• HE Lin, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China, for his basic and significant contributions to the understanding of causative genes and molecular mechanics of genetic diseases.
• Partha Pratim MAJUMDER, Human Genetics Unit of the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata, India, for his outstanding contributions to the understanding of human evolution and diseases through human genome diversity and genetic epidemiological studies in populations and families.

Chemistry
• WAN Li-Jun, Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, China, for his basic and significant contribution to surface and interface physical chemistry.
• Swapan Kumar GHOSH, Theoretical Chemistry Section, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, India, for having formulated a theory of covalent binding in molecules by proposing the novel concept of spin-polarized electronegativity and hardness.

Earth Sciences
Rafael NAVARRO-GONZALEZ, Laboratory of Plasma Physics and Planetary Studies, Institute of Nuclear Sciences, Autonomous National University of Mexico, Mexico City, for his outstanding achievements in the discovery of Mars-like soils in the Atacama Desert, a location now used as training ground for future Mars missions.

Engineering Sciences
CHEN Liang-Gee, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, China, for his leadership and significant contributions to the joint development of video processing algorithms and VLSI architectures.

Mathematics
Enrique PUJALS, Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics (IMPA), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for his contribution to develop a theory about robust dynamics and about the role of homoclinic bifurcation as a universal mechanism to describe the way to produce very rich and complex dynamics.

Medical Sciences
Ricardo GAZZINELLI, Department of Biochemistry and Immunology, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, for his seminal work on elucidating molecular and cellular mechanisms by which innate immunity mediates host resistance to infection and diseases caused by intracellular protozoan parasites.

Physics
• GAO Hongjun, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, for his basic and significant contributions to the understanding and controlling of quantum structure formation and application in quantum devices.
• Nathan BERKOVITS, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Universidade Estadual Paulista, São Paulo, Brazil, for his significant contributions to superstring theory and its covariant quantization.

2010 TWAS Prize Winners

Please see relevant press release: TWAS Announces 2010 Prize Winners

2011 TWAS Prize Winners

Please see relevant press release: TWAS Announces 2011 Prize Winners

2012 TWAS Prize Winners

Please see relevant press release: TWAS Announces 2012 Prize Winners

2013 TWAS Prize Winners

Please see relevant press release: TWAS announces 2013 Prize winners

2014 TWAS Prize Winners

Please see relevant press release: TWAS announces 2014 Prize winners