Vice president of the Accademia dei Lincei, Nobel Prize winner Giorgio Parisi, hailed the work of the recipients.
“It [the mRna vaccine] is an exceptional discovery that has saved many lives during COVID and will save even more when cancer vaccines come into operation,” he said.
The two researchers are also co-founders of the biopharmaceutical firm BioNTech.
For Physics, the International Feltrinelli Prize goes to Ioannis (John) Iliopoulos, for proposing the existence of a new type of quark with Sheldon Glashow and Luciano Maiani.
Among the young winners is robotics expert Calogero Oddo, inventor of the first robotic hand with a sense of touch.
The awards ceremony is set for June 23 in Rome, at the Accademia dei Lincei, as part of the ceremony closing the 2022-2023 academic year.
The two international prizes, each worth €100,000, are joined by the young prizes, each worth €50,000: the Bioengineering Prize goes to Oddo, of the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Pisa; the Environmental Chemistry award to Raffaele Cucciniello of the University of Salerno; and the award for Epidemiology to Michele Carugno of the University of Milan.
As it has every year since 1950, the Accademia dei Lincei gives prizes dedicated to the entrepreneur Antonio Feltrinelli to those who distinguish themselves in the arts, sciences and letters.
Over the years, among the recipients in physical, mathematical and natural sciences have been Albert Sabin, Luigi Cavalli Sforza and Rita Levi Montalcini.
ANSA
