Three $1 Million Awards to be Presented
TEL AVIV, Israel, Feb. 16 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- The international Dan David Prize, which annually awards three prizes of US$1 million each for outstanding achievement, announced the names of its 2009 laureates today.
The Dan David Prize is named after international businessman and philanthropist Dan David and is headquartered at Tel Aviv University. The laureates, who donate 10% of their prize money towards 20 doctoral and postdoctoral scholarships, will be honoured at a ceremony on May 17, 2009 at Tel Aviv University in the presence of the President of the State of Israel, Mr. Shimon Peres.
The 2009 Dan David Prize laureates, in the Past, Present and Future Time Dimensions, are:
Past -- sharing the prize in the field of "Astrophysics -- History of the Universe":
-- Paolo de Bernardis (University La Sapienza, Rome, Italy), Andrew Lang
(Caltech, USA) and Paul Richards (UC Berkeley, USA) are awarded the
2009 Dan David Prize for their discoveries concerning the geometry and
composition of our Universe with the BOOMERanG and MAXIMA experiments.
The publication of their data in 2000 provided the first undisputed
evidence that the Universe has a flat geometry.
Present -- in the field of "Leadership":
-- Tony Blair (former Prime Minister of Great Britain) for his exceptional
leadership and steadfast determination in helping to engineer
agreements and forge lasting solutions to areas in conflict
Future - -in the field of "Global Public Health":
-- Robert C. Gallo (Institute of Human Virology, Baltimore, USA) for his
research of the HIV and T cell leukaemia viruses and especially for the
development of a robust, simple blood test to detect the HIV virus, the
importance of which for the epidemiology of this huge pandemic cannot
be overestimated.
Upon announcement of the laureates Dan David commented: "The 2009 laureates epitomise the essence of the three Time Dimensions; we have three scientists who shed light on the way in which our universe was formed, a great leader instrumental in resolving on-going world conflicts, and a scientist working to alleviate human disease and suffering now and in the future."