Erwin Chargaff - Wikipedia

American biochemist (1905–2002)

Erwin Chargaff
Born	(1905-08-11)11 August 1905Czernowitz, Duchy of Bukovina, Austria-Hungary
Died	20 June 2002(2002-06-20) (aged 96)New York City, United States
Education	Maximiliansgymnasium, Vienna College of Technology (1924–1928)
Known for	Chargaff's rules
Spouse	Vera Broido ​ ​(m. 1928; died 1995)​
Children	Thomas Chargaff
Awards	Pasteur Medal (1949), National Medal of Science (1974)
Scientific career
Fields	Biochemistry
Institutions	Yale University (1925–1930), University of Berlin (1930–1933), Pasteur Institute (1933–1934), Columbia University (1935–1974), Roosevelt Hospital (1974–1992)
Doctoral advisor	Fritz Feigl
Doctoral students	Seymour S. Cohen, Boris Magasanik
Signature

Erwin Chargaff (11 August 1905 – 20 June 2002) was an Austro-Hungarian-born American biochemist, writer, and professor of biochemistry at Columbia University medical school.[1] A Bucovinian Jew who immigrated to the United States during the Nazi regime, he penned a well-reviewed[2][3] autobiography, Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life Before Nature.[4] Through careful experimentation, Chargaff discovered two rules, called Chargaff's rules, which helped lead to the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA.

Early life

[edit]

Chargaff was born on 11 August 1905 to a Jewish family in Czernowitz, Duchy of Bukovina, Austria-Hungary, which is now Chernivtsi, Ukraine.[5]

At the outbreak of World War I, his family moved to Vienna, where he attended the Maximiliansgymnasium (now the Gymnasium Wasagasse). He then went on to the Vienna College of Technology (Technische Hochschule Wien) where he met his future wife Vera Broido.

From 1924 to 1928, Chargaff studied chemistry in Vienna, and earned a doctorate working under the direction of Fritz Feigl.[6][7]

He married Vera Broido in 1928. Chargaff had one son, Thomas Chargaff.

From 1925 to 1930, Chargaff served as the Milton Campbell Research fellow in organic chemistry at Yale University, but he did not like New Haven, Connecticut. Chargaff returned to Europe, where he lived from 1930 to 1934, serving first as the assistant in charge of chemistry for the department of bacteriology and public health at the University of Berlin (1930–1933) and then, being forced to resign his position in Germany as a result of the Nazi policies against Jews, as a research associate at the Pasteur Institute in Paris (1933–1934).

Columbia University

[edit]

Chargaff immigrated to Manhattan, New York City in 1935,[8] taking a position as a research associate in the department of biochemistry at Columbia University, where he spent most of his professional career. Chargaff became an assistant professor in 1938 and a professor in 1952. After serving as department chair from 1970 to 1974, Chargaff retired as professor emeritus. After his retirement as professor emeritus, Chargaff moved his lab to Roosevelt Hospital, where he continued to work until his retirement in 1992.[citation needed]

He became an American citizen in 1940.

During his time at Columbia, Chargaff published numerous scientific papers, dealing primarily with the study of nucleic acids such as DNA using chromatographic techniques. He became interested in DNA in 1944 after Oswald Avery identified the molecule as the basis of heredity.[9][7][10] Cohen says that "Almost alone among the scientists of this time, Chargaff accepted the unusual Avery paper and concluded that genetic differences among DNAs must be reflected in chemical differences among these substances. He was actually the first biochemist to reorganize his laboratory to test this hypothesis, which he went on to prove by 1949."[8] Chargaff said of the Avery discovery: "I saw before me (in 1944), in dark contours, the beginning of a grammar of biology",[7] and in 1950 he published a paper with the conclusion that the amounts of adenine and thymine in DNA were roughly the same, as were the amounts of cytosine and guanine.[11] This later became known as the first of Chargaff's rules. Instrumental in his DNA discoveries were the innovation of paper chromatography,[12] and the commercially available ultraviolet spectrophotometer tool.[7]

Chargaff lectured about his results at Cambridge University in 1952, with Watson and Crick in attendance.[13]

Chargaff's rules

[edit]

Key conclusions from Erwin Chargaff's work are now known as Chargaff's rules. The first and best known achievement was to show that in natural DNA the number of guanine units equals the number of cytosine units and the number of adenine units equals the number of thymine units. In human DNA, for example, the four bases are present in these percentages: A=30.9% and T=29.4%; G=19.9% and C=19.8%. This strongly hinted towards the base pair makeup of the DNA, although Chargaff did not explicitly state this connection himself. For this research, Chargaff is credited with disproving the tetranucleotide hypothesis[14] (Phoebus Levene's widely accepted hypothesis that DNA was composed of a large number of repeats of GACT). Most researchers had previously assumed that deviations from equimolar base ratios (G = A = C = T) were due to experimental error, but Chargaff documented that the variation was real, with [C + G] typically being slightly less abundant. He did his experiments with the newly developed paper chromatography and ultraviolet spectrophotometer. Chargaff met Francis Crick and James D. Watson at Cambridge in 1952, and, despite not getting along with them personally,[15] he explained his findings to them. Chargaff's research would later help the Watson and Crick laboratory team to deduce the double helical structure of DNA.

The second of Chargaff's rules is that the composition of DNA varies from one species to another, in particular in the relative amounts of A, G, T, and C bases. Such evidence of molecular diversity, which had been presumed absent from DNA, made DNA a more credible candidate for the genetic material than protein.[16]

Later life

[edit]

Beginning in the 1950s, Chargaff became increasingly outspoken about the failure of the field of molecular biology, claiming that molecular biology was "running riot and doing things that can never be justified".[17] He believed that human knowledge will always be limited in relation to the complexity of the natural world, and that it is simply dangerous when humans believe that the world is a machine, even assuming that humans can have full knowledge of its workings. He also believed that in a world that functions as a complex system of interdependency and interconnectedness, genetic engineering of life will inevitably have unforeseen consequences.[1]

After Francis Crick, James Watson and Maurice Wilkins received the 1962 Nobel Prize for their work on discovering the double helix of DNA, Chargaff withdrew from his lab and wrote to scientists all over the world about his exclusion.[18]

Chargaff warned in his 1978 book Heraclitean Fire of a "molecular Auschwitz" that "the technology of genetic engineering poses a greater threat to the world than the advent of nuclear technology. An irreversible attack on the biosphere is something so unheard of, so unthinkable to previous generations, that I only wish that mine had not been guilty of it".[19][20][21]

Helping a few couples condemned to childlessness towards getting a child may strike the obstetrical cytologist as such a laudable step, but we can see the beginning of human husbandry, of industrial breeding factories... Who can deny the scientific interest attaching to the production of chimaeras, to the study of human embryonic growth in an animal uterus? ... What I see coming is a gigantic slaughterhouse, a molecular Auschwitz, in which valuable enzymes, hormones and so on will be extracted instead of gold teeth.

— Erwin Chargaff, Heraclitean Fire

The IVF technique earned his scathing disapprobation. In 1987, "Engineering a Molecular Nightmare" was published in the journal Nature,[22] which was then sent by David Alton and his colleagues in the All-Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group (APPPLG) to every Westminster MP in an effort to minimise the forthcoming harm caused by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990.[19]

Chargaff wrote in 2002 that "There are two nuclei that man should never have touched: the atomic nucleus and the cell nucleus. The technology of genetic engineering poses a greater threat to the world than the advent of nuclear technology."[23]

My life has been marked by two immense and fateful discoveries: the splitting of the atom, the recognition of the chemistry of heredity and its subsequent manipulation. It is the mistreatment of nucleus that, in both instances, lies at the basis: the nucleus of the atom, the nucleus of the cell. In both instances do I have the feeling that science has transgressed a barrier that should have remained inviolate. As happens often in science, the first discoveries were made by thoroughly admirable men, but the crowd that came right after had a more mephitic smell.

— Chargaff in Weintraub (2002)

Chargaff died later that year on 20 June 2002 in Manhattan, New York City.[24]

Honors

[edit]

Honors awarded to him include the Pasteur Medal (1949); Carl Neuberg Medal (1958);[25] Charles Leopold Mayer Prize;[26] inaugural Heineken Prize (Amsterdam, 1964);[26] Gregor Mendel Medal (Halle, 1968);[25] and the National Medal of Science (1974).[27]

Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1961), the National Academy of Sciences (1965), and the American Philosophical Society (1979)[28] and the German Academy of Sciences.[5]

Honorary Doctorate awarded by Columbia University in 1975.[28]

Books authored

[edit]

• Chargaff, Erwin (1978). Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life Before Nature. Rockefeller University Press. p. 252. ISBN 0-874-70029-9.
• Unbegreifliches Geheimnis. Wissenschaft als Kampf für und gegen die Natur. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1980, ISBN 3-608-95452-X
• Bemerkungen. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1981, ISBN 3-12-901631-7
• Warnungstafeln. Die Vergangenheit spricht zur Gegenwart. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1982, ISBN 3-608-95004-4
• Kritik der Zukunft. Essay. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1983, ISBN 3-608-93576-2
• Zeugenschaft. Essays über Sprache und Wissenschaft. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1985, ISBN 3-608-95373-6
• Serious Questions, An ABC of Sceptical Reflections. Boston, Basel, Stuttgart: Birkhäuser, 1986
• Abscheu vor der Weltgeschichte. Fragmente vom Menschen. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1988, ISBN 3-608-93531-2
• Alphabetische Anschläge. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1989, ISBN 3-608-95646-8
• Vorläufiges Ende. Ein Dreigespräch. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1990, ISBN 3-608-95443-0
• Vermächtnis. Essays. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1992, ISBN 3-608-95851-7
• Über das Lebendige. Ausgewählte Essays. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1993, ISBN 3-608-95976-9
• Armes Amerika – Arme Welt. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1994, ISBN 3-608-93291-7
• Ein zweites Leben. Autobiographisches und andere Texte. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1995, ISBN 3-608-93313-1
• Die Aussicht vom dreizehnten Stock. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1998, ISBN 3-608-93433-2
• Brevier der Ahnungen. Eine Auswahl aus dem Werk. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2002, ISBN 3-608-93513-4
• Stimmen im Labyrinth. Über die Natur und ihre Erforschung. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2003, ISBN 3-608-93580-0

See also

[edit]

• Nobel Prize controversies

References

[edit]

1. ^ a b Wright, Pearce (2 July 2002). "Erwin Chargaff: Disillusioned biochemist who pioneered our understanding of DNA". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 November 2011.
2. ^ Hecht F (1979). "Hecht F. Heraclitean fire. Sketches from a life before nature". American Journal of Human Genetics. 31 (6): 759.
3. ^ Edsall JT (1979). "Heraclitean fire. Sketches from a life before nature". Isis. 70 (2): 276–277. doi:10.1086/352204.
4. ^ Chargaff, Erwin (1978). Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life Before Nature. Rockefeller University Press. p. 252. ISBN 0-874-70029-9.
5. ^ a b Hargittai, Istvan (26 January 2000). Candid Science: Conversations With Famous Chemists. World Scientific. ISBN 978-1-78326-214-4.
6. ^ Erwin Chargaff Summary – via www.bookrags.com.
7. ^ a b c d Weintraub, Bob (September 2006). "Erwin Chargaff and Chargaff's Rules". Chemistry in Israel – Bulletin of the Israel Chemical Society (22): 29–31.
8. ^ a b Cohen, Seymour S. (2004). "Erwin Chargaff, 11 August 1905 · 20 June 2002". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 148 (2): 222–228. JSTOR 1558287.
9. ^ Avery, Oswald T.; MacLeod, Colin M.; McCarty, Maclyn (1 February 1944). "Studies on the Chemical Nature of the Substance Inducing Transformation of Pneumococcal Types – Induction of Transformation by a Desoxyribonucleic Acid Fraction Isolated from Pneumococcus Type III". Journal of Experimental Medicine. 79 (2): 137–158. doi:10.1084/jem.79.2.137. PMC 2135445. PMID 19871359.
10. ^ McCarty, Maclyn (2003). "Discovering genes are made of DNA". Nature. 421 (6921): 406. Bibcode:2003Natur.421..406M. doi:10.1038/nature01398. PMID 12540908. S2CID 4335285.
11. ^ Chargaff, Erwin; Zamenhof, Stephen; Green, Charlotte (May 1950). "Composition of human desoxypentose nucleic acid". Nature. 165 (4202): 756–7. Bibcode:1950Natur.165..756C. doi:10.1038/165756b0. PMID 15416834. S2CID 33722052.
12. ^ Consden, R.; Gordon, A. H.; Martin, A. J. P. (1944). "Qualitative analysis of proteins: A partition chromatographic method using paper". Biochemical Journal. 38 (3): 224–232. doi:10.1042/bj0380224. PMC 1258072. PMID 16747784.
13. ^ Betz, Frederick (30 November 2010). Managing Science: Methodology and Organization of Research. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 978-1-4419-7488-4.
14. ^ Levine, P.A. (1909). "Yeast nucleic acid". Biochem. Z. 17: 120–131.
15. ^ Michael Fry (2016). Landmark Experiments in Molecular Biology. Academic Press. p. 220. ISBN 978-0-12-802074-6.
16. ^ Baianu, I.C. (2 February 2010). Mathematical and Theoretical Biology. Volume 2 – Mathematical and Molecular Biophysics. I.C. Baianu.
17. ^ Newton, David E. (12 December 2016). DNA Technology: A Reference Handbook, 2nd Edition. ABC-CLIO. p. 189. ISBN 9781440850486.
18. ^ Judson, Horace (20 October 2003). "No Nobel Prize for Whining". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 August 2007.
19. ^ a b "Check the Facts: "A Gigantic Slaughterhouse ..."". August 2011.
20. ^ Baran, George R.; Kiani, Mohammad F.; Samuel, Solomon Praveen (2014). "Genetic Engineering". Healthcare and Biomedical Technology in the 21st Century. pp. 383–416. doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-8541-4_12. ISBN 978-1-4614-8540-7.
21. ^ "Eminent Scientists Comment on the Dangers of Genetically Engineered Foods".
22. ^ Chargaff, Erwin (1987). "Engineering a molecular nightmare". Nature. 327 (6119): 199–200. Bibcode:1987Natur.327..199C. doi:10.1038/327199a0. PMID 3472081. S2CID 28373983.
23. ^ Serra, Miquel Àngel (20 February 2018). ""Genetics and human improvement"". Fundacio Víctor Grífols i Lucas Foundation.
24. ^ Wade, Nicholas (30 June 2002). "Erwin Chargaff, 96, Pioneer In DNA Chemical Research". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 December 2014. Erwin Chargaff, whose research into the chemical composition of DNA helped lay the groundwork for James Watson and Francis Crick's discovery of its double-helix structure — the pivotal finding of 20th-century biology — died on June 20 in a New York hospital. He was 96.
25. ^ a b "Erwin Chargaff". Candid Science. 2000. pp. 14–28. doi:10.1142/9781860943836_0003. ISBN 978-1-86094-151-1.
26. ^ a b "Erwin Chargaff, USA — KNAW".
27. ^ "The President's National Medal of Science: Recipient Details – NSF – National Science Foundation". www.nsf.gov.
28. ^ a b Cohen, Seymour Stanley. "Erwin Chargaff 1905 – 2002: A Biographical Memoir by Seymour Cohen with selected bibliography by Robert Lehman" (PDF). Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 148 (4).

Sources

[edit]

• Erwin Chargaff Papers, American Philosophical Society
• Chargaff obituary from The Guardian, 2 July 2002
• Chargaff obituary from The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 July 2002
• Watson, James D.; Baker, Tania A.; Bell, Stephen B.; Gann, Alexander; Levine, Michael; Losick, Richard (2004). Molecular Biology of the Gene (5th ed.). Benjamin Cummings. ISBN 0-8053-4635-X.
• The composition of the deoxyribonucleic acid of salmon sperm Archived 26 March 2009 at the Wayback Machine by E. Chargaff, R. Lipshitz, C. Green and M. E. Hodes in Journal of Biological Chemistry (1951) volume 192 pages 223–230.
• Watson, James D. (1980) [orig. 1968]. The Double Helix: A personal account of the discovery of the structure of DNA (critical ed.). Norton. ISBN 0-393-01245-X.

External links

[edit] Wikiquote has quotations related to Erwin Chargaff.

• Famous Scientists (9 August 2016). "Erwin Chargaff – Biography, Facts and Pictures". famousscientists.org. Retrieved 8 August 2021.

• How Genetics Got a Chemical Education Archived 10 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (1979), 325, 345–360.
• Weintraub, B. (2006). Erwin Chargaff and Chargaff's Rules. Chemistry in Israel, Bulletin of the Israel Chemical Society. (Sept. 2006), 22, 29–31.
• Key Participants: Erwin Chargaff – Linus Pauling and the Race for DNA: A Documentary History
• National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir

v t e Laureates of the United States National Medal of Science
Behavioral and social science 1960s 1964 Neal Elgar Miller 1980s 1986 Herbert A. Simon 1987 Anne Anastasi George J. Stigler 1988 Milton Friedman 1990s 1990 Leonid Hurwicz Patrick Suppes 1991 George A. Miller 1992 Eleanor J. Gibson 1994 Robert K. Merton 1995 Roger N. Shepard 1996 Paul Samuelson 1997 William K. Estes 1998 William Julius Wilson 1999 Robert M. Solow 2000s 2000 Gary Becker 2003 R. Duncan Luce 2004 Kenneth Arrow 2005 Gordon H. Bower 2008 Michael I. Posner 2009 Mortimer Mishkin 2010s 2011 Anne Treisman 2014 Robert Axelrod 2015 Albert Bandura 2020s 2023 Huda Akil Shelley E. Taylor 2025 Larry Bartels
Biological sciences 1960s 1963 C. B. van Niel 1964 Theodosius Dobzhansky Marshall W. Nirenberg 1965 Francis P. Rous George G. Simpson Donald D. Van Slyke 1966 Edward F. Knipling Fritz Albert Lipmann William C. Rose Sewall Wright 1967 Kenneth S. Cole Harry F. Harlow Michael Heidelberger Alfred H. Sturtevant 1968 Horace Barker Bernard B. Brodie Detlev W. Bronk Jay Lush Burrhus Frederic Skinner 1969 Robert Huebner Ernst Mayr 1970s 1970 Barbara McClintock Albert B. Sabin 1973 Daniel I. Arnon Earl W. Sutherland Jr. 1974 Britton Chance Erwin Chargaff James V. Neel James Augustine Shannon 1975 Hallowell Davis Paul Gyorgy Sterling B. Hendricks Orville Alvin Vogel 1976 Roger Guillemin Keith Roberts Porter Efraim Racker E. O. Wilson 1979 Robert H. Burris Elizabeth C. Crosby Arthur Kornberg Severo Ochoa Earl Reece Stadtman George Ledyard Stebbins Paul Alfred Weiss 1980s 1981 Philip Handler 1982 Seymour Benzer Glenn W. Burton Mildred Cohn 1983 Howard L. Bachrach Paul Berg Wendell L. Roelofs Berta Scharrer 1986 Stanley Cohen Donald A. Henderson Vernon B. Mountcastle George Emil Palade Joan A. Steitz 1987 Michael E. DeBakey Theodor O. Diener Harry Eagle Har Gobind Khorana Rita Levi-Montalcini 1988 Michael S. Brown Stanley Norman Cohen Joseph L. Goldstein Maurice R. Hilleman Eric R. Kandel Rosalyn Sussman Yalow 1989 Katherine Esau Viktor Hamburger Philip Leder Joshua Lederberg Roger W. Sperry Harland G. Wood 1990s 1990 Baruj Benacerraf Herbert W. Boyer Daniel E. Koshland Jr. Edward B. Lewis David G. Nathan E. Donnall Thomas 1991 Mary Ellen Avery G. Evelyn Hutchinson Elvin A. Kabat Robert W. Kates Salvador Luria Paul A. Marks Folke K. Skoog Paul C. Zamecnik 1992 Maxine Singer Howard Martin Temin 1993 Daniel Nathans Salome G. Waelsch 1994 Thomas Eisner Elizabeth F. Neufeld 1995 Alexander Rich 1996 Ruth Patrick 1997 James Watson Robert A. Weinberg 1998 Bruce Ames Janet Rowley 1999 David Baltimore Jared Diamond Lynn Margulis 2000s 2000 Nancy C. Andreasen Peter H. Raven Carl Woese 2001 Francisco J. Ayala George F. Bass Mario R. Capecchi Ann Graybiel Gene E. Likens Victor A. McKusick Harold Varmus 2002 James E. Darnell Evelyn M. Witkin 2003 J. Michael Bishop Solomon H. Snyder Charles Yanofsky 2004 Norman E. Borlaug Phillip A. Sharp Thomas E. Starzl 2005 Anthony Fauci Torsten N. Wiesel 2006 Rita R. Colwell Nina Fedoroff Lubert Stryer 2007 Robert J. Lefkowitz Bert W. O'Malley 2008 Francis S. Collins Elaine Fuchs J. Craig Venter 2009 Susan L. Lindquist Stanley B. Prusiner 2010s 2010 Ralph L. Brinster Rudolf Jaenisch 2011 Lucy Shapiro Leroy Hood Sallie Chisholm 2012 May Berenbaum Bruce Alberts 2013 Rakesh K. Jain 2014 Stanley Falkow Mary-Claire King Simon Levin 2020s 2023 Gebisa Ejeta Eve Marder Gregory Petsko Sheldon Weinbaum 2025 Bonnie Bassler Angela Belcher Helen Blau Emery N. Brown G. David Tilman Teresa Woodruff
Chemistry 1960s 1964 Roger Adams 1980s 1982 F. Albert Cotton Gilbert Stork 1983 Roald Hoffmann George C. Pimentel Richard N. Zare 1986 Harry B. Gray Yuan Tseh Lee Carl S. Marvel Frank H. Westheimer 1987 William S. Johnson Walter H. Stockmayer Max Tishler 1988 William O. Baker Konrad E. Bloch Elias J. Corey 1989 Richard B. Bernstein Melvin Calvin Rudolph A. Marcus Harden M. McConnell 1990s 1990 Elkan Blout Karl Folkers John D. Roberts 1991 Ronald Breslow Gertrude B. Elion Dudley R. Herschbach Glenn T. Seaborg 1992 Howard E. Simmons Jr. 1993 Donald J. Cram Norman Hackerman 1994 George S. Hammond 1995 Thomas Cech Isabella L. Karle 1996 Norman Davidson 1997 Darleane C. Hoffman Harold S. Johnston 1998 John W. Cahn George M. Whitesides 1999 Stuart A. Rice John Ross Susan Solomon 2000s 2000 John D. Baldeschwieler Ralph F. Hirschmann 2001 Ernest R. Davidson Gábor A. Somorjai 2002 John I. Brauman 2004 Stephen J. Lippard 2005 Tobin J. Marks 2006 Marvin H. Caruthers Peter B. Dervan 2007 Mostafa A. El-Sayed 2008 Joanna Fowler JoAnne Stubbe 2009 Stephen J. Benkovic Marye Anne Fox 2010s 2010 Jacqueline K. Barton Peter J. Stang 2011 Allen J. Bard M. Frederick Hawthorne 2012 Judith P. Klinman Jerrold Meinwald 2013 Geraldine L. Richmond 2014 A. Paul Alivisatos 2025 R. Lawrence Edwards
Engineering sciences 1960s 1962 Theodore von Kármán 1963 Vannevar Bush John Robinson Pierce 1964 Charles S. Draper Othmar H. Ammann 1965 Hugh L. Dryden Clarence L. Johnson Warren K. Lewis 1966 Claude E. Shannon 1967 Edwin H. Land Igor I. Sikorsky 1968 J. Presper Eckert Nathan M. Newmark 1969 Jack St. Clair Kilby 1970s 1970 George E. Mueller 1973 Harold E. Edgerton Richard T. Whitcomb 1974 Rudolf Kompfner Ralph Brazelton Peck Abel Wolman 1975 Manson Benedict William Hayward Pickering Frederick E. Terman Wernher von Braun 1976 Morris Cohen Peter C. Goldmark Erwin Wilhelm Müller 1979 Emmett N. Leith Raymond D. Mindlin Robert N. Noyce Earl R. Parker Simon Ramo 1980s 1982 Edward H. Heinemann Donald L. Katz 1983 Bill Hewlett George Low John G. Trump 1986 Hans Wolfgang Liepmann Tung-Yen Lin Bernard M. Oliver 1987 Robert Byron Bird H. Bolton Seed Ernst Weber 1988 Daniel C. Drucker Willis M. Hawkins George W. Housner 1989 Harry George Drickamer Herbert E. Grier 1990s 1990 Mildred Dresselhaus Nick Holonyak Jr. 1991 George H. Heilmeier Luna B. Leopold H. Guyford Stever 1992 Calvin F. Quate John Roy Whinnery 1993 Alfred Y. Cho 1994 Ray W. Clough 1995 Hermann A. Haus 1996 James L. Flanagan C. Kumar N. Patel 1998 Eli Ruckenstein 1999 Kenneth N. Stevens 2000s 2000 Yuan-Cheng B. Fung 2001 Andreas Acrivos 2002 Leo Beranek 2003 John M. Prausnitz 2004 Edwin N. Lightfoot 2005 Jan D. Achenbach 2006 Robert S. Langer 2007 David J. Wineland 2008 Rudolf E. Kálmán 2009 Amnon Yariv 2010s 2010 Shu Chien 2011 John B. Goodenough 2012 Thomas Kailath 2020s 2023 Subra Suresh 2025 John Dabiri
Mathematical, statistical, and computer sciences 1960s 1963 Norbert Wiener 1964 Solomon Lefschetz H. Marston Morse 1965 Oscar Zariski 1966 John Milnor 1967 Paul Cohen 1968 Jerzy Neyman 1969 William Feller 1970s 1970 Richard Brauer 1973 John Tukey 1974 Kurt Gödel 1975 John W. Backus Shiing-Shen Chern George Dantzig 1976 Kurt Otto Friedrichs Hassler Whitney 1979 Joseph L. Doob Donald E. Knuth 1980s 1982 Marshall H. Stone 1983 Herman Goldstine Isadore Singer 1986 Peter Lax Antoni Zygmund 1987 Raoul Bott Michael Freedman 1988 Ralph E. Gomory Joseph B. Keller 1989 Samuel Karlin Saunders Mac Lane Donald C. Spencer 1990s 1990 George F. Carrier Stephen Cole Kleene John McCarthy 1991 Alberto Calderón 1992 Allen Newell 1993 Martin David Kruskal 1994 John Cocke 1995 Louis Nirenberg 1996 Richard Karp Stephen Smale 1997 Shing-Tung Yau 1998 Cathleen Synge Morawetz 1999 Felix Browder Ronald R. Coifman 2000s 2000 John Griggs Thompson Karen Uhlenbeck 2001 Calyampudi R. Rao Elias M. Stein 2002 James G. Glimm 2003 Carl R. de Boor 2004 Dennis P. Sullivan 2005 Bradley Efron 2006 Hyman Bass 2007 Leonard Kleinrock Andrew J. Viterbi 2009 David B. Mumford 2010s 2010 Richard A. Tapia S. R. Srinivasa Varadhan 2011 Solomon W. Golomb Barry Mazur 2012 Alexandre Chorin David Blackwell 2013 Michael Artin 2020s 2025 Ingrid Daubechies Cynthia Dwork
Physical sciences 1960s 1963 Luis W. Alvarez 1964 Julian Schwinger Harold Urey Robert Burns Woodward 1965 John Bardeen Peter Debye Leon M. Lederman William Rubey 1966 Jacob Bjerknes Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Henry Eyring John H. Van Vleck Vladimir K. Zworykin 1967 Jesse Beams Francis Birch Gregory Breit Louis Hammett George Kistiakowsky 1968 Paul Bartlett Herbert Friedman Lars Onsager Eugene Wigner 1969 Herbert C. Brown Wolfgang Panofsky 1970s 1970 Robert H. Dicke Allan R. Sandage John C. Slater John A. Wheeler Saul Winstein 1973 Carl Djerassi Maurice Ewing Arie Jan Haagen-Smit Vladimir Haensel Frederick Seitz Robert Rathbun Wilson 1974 Nicolaas Bloembergen Paul Flory William Alfred Fowler Linus Carl Pauling Kenneth Sanborn Pitzer 1975 Hans A. Bethe Joseph O. Hirschfelder Lewis Sarett Edgar Bright Wilson Chien-Shiung Wu 1976 Samuel Goudsmit Herbert S. Gutowsky Frederick Rossini Verner Suomi Henry Taube George Uhlenbeck 1979 Richard P. Feynman Herman Mark Edward M. Purcell John Sinfelt Lyman Spitzer Victor F. Weisskopf 1980s 1982 Philip W. Anderson Yoichiro Nambu Edward Teller Charles H. Townes 1983 E. Margaret Burbidge Maurice Goldhaber Helmut Landsberg Walter Munk Frederick Reines Bruno B. Rossi J. Robert Schrieffer 1986 Solomon J. Buchsbaum H. Richard Crane Herman Feshbach Robert Hofstadter Chen-Ning Yang 1987 Philip Abelson Walter Elsasser Paul C. Lauterbur George Pake James A. Van Allen 1988 D. Allan Bromley Paul Ching-Wu Chu Walter Kohn Norman Foster Ramsey Jr. Jack Steinberger 1989 Arnold O. Beckman Eugene Parker Robert Sharp Henry Stommel 1990s 1990 Allan M. Cormack Edwin M. McMillan Robert Pound Roger Revelle 1991 Arthur L. Schawlow Ed Stone Steven Weinberg 1992 Eugene M. Shoemaker 1993 Val Fitch Vera Rubin 1994 Albert Overhauser Frank Press 1995 Hans Dehmelt Peter Goldreich 1996 Wallace S. Broecker 1997 Marshall Rosenbluth Martin Schwarzschild George Wetherill 1998 Don L. Anderson John N. Bahcall 1999 James Cronin Leo Kadanoff 2000s 2000 Willis E. Lamb Jeremiah P. Ostriker Gilbert F. White 2001 Marvin L. Cohen Raymond Davis Jr. Charles Keeling 2002 Richard Garwin W. Jason Morgan Edward Witten 2003 G. Brent Dalrymple Riccardo Giacconi 2004 Robert N. Clayton 2005 Ralph A. Alpher Lonnie Thompson 2006 Daniel Kleppner 2007 Fay Ajzenberg-Selove Charles P. Slichter 2008 Berni Alder James E. Gunn 2009 Yakir Aharonov Esther M. Conwell Warren M. Washington 2010s 2011 Sidney Drell Sandra Faber Sylvester James Gates 2012 Burton Richter Sean C. Solomon 2014 Shirley Ann Jackson 2020s 2023 Barry Barish Myriam Sarachik 2025 Richard Alley Wendy Freedman Keivan Stassun

v t e Heineken Prizes
Biochemistry and Biophysics	Chargaff (1964) Brachet (1967) Chance (1970) De Duve (1973) Van Deenen (1976) Klug (1979) Weissmann (1982) Julesz & Reichardt (1985) Cech (1988) Leder (1990) Borst (1992) Berridge (1994) Nurse (1996) Pawson (1998) Rothman (2000) Tsien (2002) Fire (2004) Jeffreys (2006) Szostak (2008) Hartl (2010) De Lange (2012) Dobson (2014) Doudna (2016) Zhuang (2018) Stillman (2020)
Medicine	Lauterbur (1989) Van Rood (1990) Moncada (1992) Montagnier (1994) De Wied (1996) Marshall (1998) Kandel (2000) Selkoe (2002) Blackburn (2004) King (2006) Peto (2008) Steinman (2010) Clevers (2012) Alitalo (2014) Jackson (2016) Carmeliet (2018) Deisseroth (2020)
Environmental Sciences	Lovelock (1990) Branica (1992) BirdLife International (1994) Daly (1996) Ehrlich (1998) Harremoës (2000) Thompson (2002) Levin (2004) Pimm (2006) Brunekreef (2008) Tilman (2010) Laurance (2012) Sinninghe Damsté (2014) Mace (2016) Hebert (2018) Le Quéré (2020)
History	Gay (1990) Van der Wee (1992) Brown (1994) Oberman (1996) Ozouf (1998) De Vries (2000) Schilling (2002) Le Goff (2004) Mokyr (2006) Israel (2008) McKitterick (2010) Parker (2012) Assmann (2014) Herrin (2016) McNeill (2018) Daston (2020)
Cognitive Science	Anderson (2006) Dehaene (2008) Tomasello (2010) Duncan (2012) McClelland (2014) Spelke (2016) Kanwisher (2018) Zatorre (2020)
Art	Verhoef (1988) Bot (1990) C. Visser (1992) Röling (1994) Martens (1996) Van de Pavert (1998) Geelen (2000) Mik (2002) Van Golden (2004) Koelewijn (2006) B. Visser (2008) Manders (2010) Struycken (2012) Van Oldenborgh (2014) Dröge Wendel (2016) Van Lieshout (2018) Blom (2020)

Authority control databases
International	ISNI VIAF GND FAST WorldCat
National	United States France BnF data Japan Italy Czech Republic Netherlands Norway Latvia Croatia Israel
Academics	CiNii Leopoldina
Artists	FID
People	Deutsche Biographie DDB
Other	IdRef Open Library SNAC Yale LUX