US biochemist researching treatment of HIV and coronaviruses wins Israel’s Wolf Prize

An American biochemist whose research has helped scientists make inroads into treating coronavirus as well as HIV wins this year’s Wolf Prize, a prestigious Israeli award in the arts and sciences.

Pamela Björkman of the California Institute of Technology wins the prize for “offering new hope in the fight against infectious diseases,” says the Wolf Fund, which awards the prize.

Björkman’s research “unlocked the secrets of how the immune system identifies and battles pathogens, developing game-changing approaches to combat some of humanity’s most formidable viral enemies,” the fund says.

Eight others also received the state-funded prize, which has been awarded annually for 47 years. Many of the award winners have gone on to receive Nobel prizes.

Other recipients of this year’s award include Jeffery Dangl of the University of North Carolina, Jonathan Jones of the Sainsbury Laboratory in England, and Brian Staskawicz of the University of California, Berkeley for agriculture. Also receiving the prize are professors Jainendra Jain of Pennsylvania State University, Moty Heiblum of Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science, James Eisenstein of the California Institute of Technology in physics, and Helmut Schwarz of the Technische Universität Berlin in chemistry.

Past laureates include astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, artist Marc Chagall, conductor Zubin Mehta, and musician Stevie Wonder.