2010 Kavli Prize Announcement Program

World Science Festival, New York City
June 3, 2010 - 8:00-10:00am EDT; Live Webcast Begins 8:30am EDT

Opening Address – Harold Varmus: Co-Chair, the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST)

Harold Varmus is the co-chair of PCAST, President Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Varmus served as the Director of the National Institutes of Health from 1993 to 1999. Much of Dr. Varmus' scientific work was conducted during 23 years as a faculty member at the University of California, San Francisco, Medical School, where he and Dr. J. Michael Bishop and their co-workers demonstrated the cellular origins of the oncogene of a chicken retrovirus. This discovery led to the isolation of many cellular genes that normally control growth and development and are frequently mutated in human cancer. For this work, Bishop and Varmus received many awards, including the 1989 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine and recipient of the National Medal of Science.

Announcement of the 2010 Kavli Prize Laureates by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters – Oslo, Norway

The prizes will be presented by Nils Christian Stenseth, President of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, with accompanied remarks by the Prize Committee chairmen: Professor Oddbjørn Engvold, University of Oslo (Chair, Kavli Prize Astrophysics Committee); Professor Arne Skjeltorp, University of Oslo (Chair, Kavli Prize Nanoscience Committee); and Professor Jon Storm-Mathisen, University of Oslo
(Chair, Kavli Prize Neuroscience Committee)

Jim Al-Khalili, Moderator
Al-Khalili is Professor of Physics, Professor of Public Engagement in Science, and EPSRC Senior Media Fellow at the University of Surrey, United Kingdom. The author of several popular science books and appearing regularly on radio and television, his honors include the Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize for Science Communication.  His extensive work includes the recently broadcast BBC documentary, "The Secret Life of Chaos, with Prof. Jim Al-Khalilli."

2010 Kavli Prize Panel Discussion – World Science Festival, New York

A panel discussion about the Prizes from the World Science Festival in New York. Award-winning ABC news journalist Elizabeth Vargas will be joined by three acclaimed scientists: Antonio Damasio, Mostafa A. El-Sayed and theoretical physicist Kip Thorne.

• Antonio Damasio is one of the world’s leading neurologists and neuroscientists and has made seminal contributions to the understanding of how the brain processes emotion, decision, and consciousness. Some of these have been described in his books Descartes’ Error, The Feeling of What Happens, and Looking for Spinoza, which have been translated into over 30 languages. Dr. Damasio is the recipient of numerous academic honors and awards, including the 2005 Asturias Prize in Science and Technology and the 2004 Signoret Prize, which he shared with his wife Hanna Damasio. He is David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience and Director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California, and an adjunct professor at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California. Dr. Damasio’s new book, Self Comes to Mind, will be published by Knopf/Pantheon in fall, 2010.
• Mostafa A. El-Sayed is an internationally renowned nanoscience researcher whose work in the synthesis and study of the properties of nanomaterials of different shape may have applications in the treatment of cancer. He has a spectroscopy rule named after him, the "El-Sayed rule." Dr. El-Sayed and his group have contributed to many areas of physical and materials chemistry research, including the development of new techniques such as magnetophoto selection, picosecond Raman spectroscopy and phosphorescence microwave double resonance spectroscopy.  His work earned him a 2007 U.S. National Medal of Science award in Chemistry “...for his seminal and creative contributions to our understanding of the electronic and optical properties of nano-materials and to their applications in nano-catalysis and nano-medicine.” Among his other many honors are the 2009 Ahmed Zewail Prize in Molecular Science. Widely published, Dr. El-Sayed is the Julius Brown Chair and Regents Professor and Director of the Laser Dynamics Laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
• Kip Thorne is a prolific expert on gravitational waves and co-author of the textbook Gravitation, from which most of the present generation of scientists has learned general relativity. His research has focused on relativistic stars, black holes, wormholes, time warps and gravitational waves, and he cofounded the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory) Project, with which he is still associated. A member of the California Institute of Technology faculty since 1967, Thorne was The Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics from 1991 to 2009. His awards include the Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society, the Karl Schwarzschild Medal of the German Astronomical Society, the Albert Einstein Medal of the Albert Einstein Society, and three major prizes for his book Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy. Thorne is currently pursuing a career in research, writing and media, including the forthcoming Steven Spielberg-directed movie Interstellar, for which Thorne co-authored the story and is executive producer.

Elizabeth Vargas, Moderator

Co-anchor of the ABC newsmagazine "20/20," award-winning anchor and correspondent Elizabeth Vargas has covered breaking news stories, reported in-depth investigations and conducted newsmaker interviews around the world since joining ABC News in 1996. During the historic Iraqi elections in December 2005, she anchored the network's “World News” from Baghdad. She won an Emmy in 2000 for Outstanding Instant Coverage of a News Story for anchoring live coverage of the Elian Gonzalez case. The New York Times in 2004 cited Vargas for her “intellectually brave” reporting on the 1998 anti-gay hate crime murder of Matthew Shepard. Her 2003 special “In the Shadow of Laci Peterson” examined why the disappearances of several young women in northern California failed to attract the same media attention as the Peterson case. Vargas co-anchored “World News” with Bob Woodruff before joining the network's “20/20” newsmagazine. She was previously the anchor of “World News Tonight Sunday” and was also a frequent substitute anchor on “Good Morning America,” as well as a correspondent for “20/20” and “Primetime Thursday” and a co-anchor of “Primetime Monday.” Before joining ABC, she worked at NBC News.