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Carl Woese receives the Crafoord Prize
9/25/2003
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CHAMPAIGN,
Ill. — Microbiologist Carl R. Woese formally accepted the $500,000
Crafoord Prize in Biosciences from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
in Sweden. The king of Sweden presented the prize to Woese on Sept.
24.
The annual prize marks accomplishments in scientific fields not covered
by the Nobel Prizes in science, which the academy also selects. Woese,
the Stanley O. Ikenberry Endowed Chair at the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign, was honored for “his discovery of a third
domain of life,” according to the academy's announcement in February.
(See U. of I. news release.)
“Carl Woese exemplifies our very best,” said Richard Herman,
the provost of the Urbana campus. “We take great pride in this
signal recognition of Carl’s magnificent achievement.”
Woese accepted the prize at the end of a three-day symposium devoted
to the “Phylogeny and Evolution of Mircoorganisms.” He concluded
the symposium with a keynote address on “The Archaea and What They Represent.”
Gary Olsen, a colleague in the department of microbiology at Illinois,
accompanied Woese to Sweden and presented a lecture on “Horizontal
Gene Transfer and the Triumph of Darwin” at the symposium.
