Kurt Wuthrich
Kurt Wuthrich
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2002
Nobel co-recipients: John B. Fenn, Koichi Tanaka
Name: Kurt Wüthrich
Birth: 4 October 1938, Aarberg, Switzerland
Affiliation: Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), Zurich, Switzerland, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA
Award: “for his development of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy for determining the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules in solution.”
Portion of Cash: 1/3
Nobel Prize Cash and Philanthropy
Kurt Wuthrich, a Swiss scientist who has worked in the US was awarded half of the Chemistry Nobel Prize cash of a total of about a million dollars.
In Switzerland, the official retirement age is sixty five. After that age people are not permitted to work full time. When the prize was awarded, Wuthrich had just turned sixty four years of age. Hence he chose to use the Nobel Prize money to establish a laboratory in the US. Upon hearing the news that he was awarded the Nobel, he was surprised and overjoyed. He was also “Happy that the prize was coming to Switzerland”.