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Medal Cash & Philanthropy

James Dewey Watson decided to auction off his Nobel Prize in 2014, making him the first Nobel Prize winner to auction off his prize while living. Watson felt obligated to auction off the prize due to lack of funds after being forced to retire as chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Long Island over controversial racist comments. The Nobel Prize sold for $4.7 Million, the most for which a Nobel Prize has sold in history. Watson intended to donate the proceeds to conservation work in Long Island and to funding research at Trinity College, Dublin.

The buyer of the Nobel Prize medal, Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, gave the medal back to Watson, because he thought it was “unacceptable” that he should be compelled to sell the same. According to Russia’s Itar-Tass, Usmanov’s press agent said, “Dr. Watson’s work contributed to cancer research, the illness from which my father died. It is important for me that the money that I spent on this medal will go to supporting scientific research, and the medal will stay with the person who deserved the same.”