The Marcel Benoist Prize, offered by the Marcel Benoist Foundation, is a monetary prize that has been offered annually since 1920 to a

scientist A scientist is a person who conducts scientific research to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosoph ...

of Swiss nationality or residency who has made the most useful scientific discovery. Emphasis is placed on those discoveries affecting human life. Since 1997, candidates in the

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...

have also been eligible for the prize. The Marcel Benoist Foundation was established by the will of the French lawyer Marcel Benoist, a wartime resident of

Lausanne , neighboring_municipalities= Bottens, Bretigny-sur-Morrens, Chavannes-près-Renens, Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne, Crissier, Cugy, Écublens, Épalinges, Évian-les-Bains (FR-74), Froideville, Jouxtens-Mézery, Le Mont-sur-Lausanne, Lugrin (FR ...

, who died in 1918. It is managed by a group of trustees comprising the Swiss interior minister and heads of the main Swiss universities. It is often dubbed the "Swiss Nobel Prize."

History

The first award was given to immunologist Maurice Arthus (1862–1945) at the University of Lausanne. Other winners have included computer scientist

Niklaus Wirth Niklaus Emil Wirth (born 15 February 1934) is a Swiss computer scientist. He has designed several programming languages, including Pascal, and pioneered several classic topics in software engineering. In 1984, he won the Turing Award, generally ...

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either ...

Michel Mayor, and cardiologist Max Holzmann. , eleven Marcel Benoist winners have later also won the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

: Paul Karrer, Leopold Ruzicka, Walter R. Hess, Tadeus Reichstein, Vladimir Prelog, Niels Kaj Jerne, Johannes G. Bednorz, Karl. Alexander Müller, Richard R. Ernst, Kurz Wüthrich, and Michel Mayor. In 2009, Françoise Gisou van der Goot ( École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne) was the first woman to win the Marcel Benoist Prize.

Laureates

* 1920: Maurice Arthus * 1921: Conrad Brunner * 1922:

Paul Karrer Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) * Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...

* 1923: Albert Heim * 1924: Heinrich Zangger * 1925: Alfred Gysi * 1926: Emile Argand * 1927: Hermann Sahli * 1928: Jules Gonin * 1929: Paul Niggli * 1930: Aloys Müller * 1931: Walter R. Hess * 1932:

Maurice Lugeon Maurice Lugeon FRS(For) HFRSE FGS (10 July 1870 – 23 October 1953) was a Swiss geologist, and the pioneer of nappe tectonics. He was a pupil of Eugène Renevier. Named for Maurice Lugeon, the lugeon is a measure of transmissivity in rocks ...

* 1933: Robert Doerr * 1934:

Max Askanazy Max Askanazy (24 February 1865, Stallupönen, East Prussia – 23 October 1940, Geneva, Switzerland) was a German-Swiss pathologist. In 1890 he received his medical doctorate from the University of Königsberg, where he worked for several years ...

* 1935: Jakob Eugster * 1936: Alfredo Vannotti * 1937: Charles Dhéré * 1938: Leopold Ruzicka * 1939: Fritz Baltzer * 1940: Friedrich T. Wahlen * 1941: Hermann Mooser * 1942: Arthur Stoll * 1943:

Paul Scherrer Paul Hermann Scherrer (3 February 1890 – 25 September 1969) was a Swiss physicist. Born in St. Gallen, Switzerland, he studied at Göttingen, Germany, before becoming a lecturer there. Later, Scherrer became head of the Department of Physics ...

* 1944: * 1945:

Ernst Albert Gäumann Ernst Albert Gäumann (6 October 1893 – 5 December 1963) was a Swiss botanist and mycologist. Born in Lyss, Canton of Bern, he obtained his early education in Biel, where he experienced both German and French languages and cultures. Studying wi ...

* 1946: Alexander von Muralt * 1947:

Tadeus Reichstein Tadeusz Reichstein (20 July 1897 – 1 August 1996) was a Polish-Swiss chemist and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate (1950), which was awarded for his work on the isolation of cortisone. Early life Reichstein was born into a Po ...

* 1948: Hans E. Walther * 1949: Albert Frey-Wyssling * 1950: Emile Guyénot * 1951: Anton Fonio * 1952: Otto Gsell * 1953: Alfred Fleisch * 1954: Ernst Hadorn * 1955: Max Holzmann * 1956: Siegfried Rosin * 1957: Jakob Seiler * 1958:

Klaus Clusius Klaus Paul Alfred Clusius (19 March 1903 – 28 May 1963) was a German physical chemist from Breslau (Wrocław), Silesia. During World War II, he worked on the German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranium Club; he worked on isotope s ...

* 1959: Albert Wettstein * 1960: Pierre Duchosal * 1961: Werner Kuhn * 1962: Alfred Hässig * 1963:

Gerold Schwarzenbach Gerold Karl Schwarzenbach (15 March 1904 – 20 May 1978) was a Swiss chemist. Schwarzenbach was born and grew up in Horgen, Switzerland. He studied chemistry at the ETH Zurich and graduated in 1928 with his dissertation ''Studien über die Salz ...

* 1964:

Vladimir Prelog Vladimir Prelog (23 July 1906 – 7 January 1998) was a Croatian-Swiss organic chemist who received the 1975 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his research into the stereochemistry of organic molecules and reactions. Prelog was born and grew up in ...

* 1965: Georges de Rham * 1966: Edouard Kellenberger and Alfred Tissières * 1967: Kurt Mühlethaler and Hans J. Moor * 1968: Michel Dolivo * 1969: Walter Heitler * 1970:

Charles Weissmann Charles Weissmann (born 14 October 1931) is a Hungarian-Swiss molecular biologist. Weissmann is particularly known for the first cloning and expression of interferon and his contributions to the unraveling of the molecular genetics of neurogener ...

* 1971: Manfred Bleuler * 1972:

Albert Eschenmoser Albert Jakob Eschenmoser (born 5 August 1925) is a Swiss organic chemist, best known for his work on the synthesis of complex heterocyclic natural compounds, most notably vitamin B12. In addition to his significant contributions to the field of ...

* 1973: Lucien Girardier, Eric Jéquier and Georges Spinnler * 1974: Ewald Weibel * 1975: M. Gazi Yasargil * 1976: Theodor K. Brunner, Jean Charles Cerottini and Jean Lindenmann * 1977: Hans Günthard and Edgar Heilbronner * 1978: Niels Kaj Jerne * 1979: Michel Cuénod * 1980: Hans Kummer * 1981: Karl Illmensee * 1982: Franz Fankhauser * 1983: Hans R. Brunner * 1984: Harald Reuter * 1985: Richard R. Ernst * 1986: Johannes G. Bednorz and Karl Alexander Müller * 1987: Maurice E. Müller, Martin Allgöwer and Hans R. Willenegger * 1988: Ulrich Laemmli * 1989:

* 1990:

Bruno Messerli Bruno Messerli (17 September 1931, in Belp – 4 February 2019) was a Swiss geographer and university professor who focused on high mountains and highland-lowland linkages. He was appointed Full Professor of Geomorphology in 1968 by the Universit ...

, Hans Oeschger and

Werner Stumm Werner Stumm (1924 – 14 April 1999) was a Swiss chemist. After earning his doctorate in inorganic chemistry at the University of Zürich in 1952 he moved to the U.S. where he was active as a professor at Harvard University until 1969. From 197 ...

* 1991:

Duilio Arigoni Duilio Arigoni (6 December 1928 – 10 June 2020) was a Swiss chemist and Emeritus Professor at ETH Zurich. He worked on the biosynthetic pathways of many organic natural substances. Birth and education Born in Lugano, Switzerland, Arigoni ...

and

Kurt Wüthrich Kurt Wüthrich (born 4 October 1938 in Aarberg, Canton of Bern) is a Swiss chemist/biophysicist and Nobel Chemistry laureate, known for developing nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) methods for studying biological macromolecules. Education and ...

* 1992: Gottfried Schatz * 1993: no prize * 1994: Martin Schwab * 1995: Henri Isliker and Alfred Pletscher * 1996: Bernard Rossier * 1997: Jürg M. Fröhlich * 1998: Michel Mayor * 1999: Jörg Paul Müller and Luzius Wildhaber * 2000: Dieter Seebach * 2001: * 2002: Rüdiger Wehner * 2003:

Denis Duboule Denis Duboule (born February 17, 1955) is a Swiss-French biologist. He earned his PhD in Biology in 1984 and is currently Professor of Developmental Genetics and Genomics at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and at the De ...

* 2004: Adriano Aguzzi * 2005: Othmar Keel * 2006: Timothy J. Richmond * 2007: Ari Helenius * 2008: Ernst Fehr * 2009: Françoise Gisou van der Goot (first time that the prize is awarded to a woman) * 2010: Daniel Loss * 2011: Michele Parrinello * 2012:

Michael N. Hall Michael Nip Hall (born 1953) is an American-Swiss molecular biologist and professor at the Biozentrum University of Basel, Switzerland. Life Hall grew up in South America (Venezuela, Peru). He earned a Bachelor of Science in Zoology from the ...

* 2013: Michael Grätzel * 2014:

Nicolas Gisin Nicolas Gisin (born 1952) is a Swiss physicist and professor at the University of Geneva working on the foundations of quantum mechanics, and quantum information and communication. His work includes both experimental and theoretical physics. He ...

* 2015: Laurent Keller * 2016: Johan Auwerx * 2017: Thomas Stocker * 2018: Lars-Erik Cederman * 2019: Nicola Spaldin * 2020: Rudolf Aebersold * 2021: Thomas Berger

References

External links

Official website
Benoist Benoist Benoist Benoist Prize {{Switzerland-stub

History

Laureates

See also

References

External links