Albert Einstein World Award of Science 1997

Field of Research: Biochemistry

Date: 12 November 1997

Place of Ceremony: Main Auditorium

Host Institution: Chulalongkorn University

Host Country: Bangkok, Thailand

Bangkok, Thailand, November 1997. The World Cultural Council presented the 1997 Albert Einstein World Award of Science to Prof. Jean-Marie Ghuysen, Professor, Head, Microbiology Department, University of Liege, Belgium. The Official Award Ceremony took place at the Chulalongkorn University which acted as host for 1997.

This recognition is for the valuable and pioneering contributions in the field of antibacterial chemotherapy where Prof. Ghuysen’s research has been decisive in opening avenues of scientific exploration for his colleagues in Liege and internationally.

Through is continuing quest to understand the mode of action of penicillin at the cellular, molecular and atomic levels, such issue took him, in 1968, to a capital discovery: the structure of the bacterial cell wall. In the following years, he created a multidisciplinary team of international prestige which researches had the goal to understand, into an atomic scale, how does penicillin kills bacteria. Prof. Ghuysen has established new concepts of major importance for the future of antibacterial chemotherapy and the developing biosciences.

Prof. Jean-Marie Ghuysen was born in Trembleur, Belgium in 1925. He attended to the University of Liege in 1947 he graduated as pharmacist and received his Ph. D (Physical Chemistry) in 1951.

He has received many awards and honours, among them the Gairdner Foundation International Award in Medical Science and the Carlos J. Finlay Award in Microbiology from UNESCO. He is member of many important organizations in the world, like the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium; the European Molecular Biology Organization; the Biochemical Society and the New York Academy of Sciences.