Announcement of 2012 Feynman Award Winners

[Foresight Institute]

"The Foresight Institute is pleased to announce..."
------------------------------------------------------------
Foresight Institute (www.foresight.org)


** Foresight is pleased to announce the winners of the 2012 Foresight Institute
Feynman Prizes for Nanotechnology Experiment and Theory.
------------------------------------------------------------
The winner of the 2012 Feynman Prize for Experiment is the team of Gerhard
Meyer, Leo Gross, and Jascha Repp for their work at IBM Research in Zurich (Dr.
Repp is now at Regensburg University). The award recognizes their remarkable
experiments advancing the frontiers of scanning probe microscopy. They were the
first to to produce images of molecular orbitals and charges detailed enough to
identify the structure of individual molecules, as well as metal-molecule
complexes. They have also been able to precisely make and break individual
chemical bonds. These developments provide crucial insights and tools for the
design of future molecular systems.

The winner of the 2012 Feynman Prize for Theory is David Soloveichik of
University of California, San Francisco, for his general theory of DNA
displacement cascades. He has shown that systems of DNA molecules can be
designed with arbitrary dynamic behavior. In particular, he has shown that they
are Turing-complete, and so can be made to run any general-purpose computer
program. This opens the door for their use as powerful control circuity for
DNA-based nanotechnology, and has motivated exciting theoretical and
experimental work in laboratories worldwide.

The awards will be presented at the 2013 Foresight Technical Conference:
Illuminating Atomic Precision to be held January 11-13 in Palo Alto, CA, where
the winners will give lectures on their groundbreaking work to leading
scientists in the field of nanotechnology. For conference information and
registration please see http://www.foresight.org/conference/

In awarding the prizes, Ralph C. Merkle, Chairman of the Prize Committee, noted
that "The work of these Feynman Prize winners has brought us one step closer to
answering Feynman's 1959 question, 'What would happen if we could arrange atoms
one by one the way we want them?' And the ability to simulate and manipulate
atoms advanced by the work of these Prize winners will enable us to design and
build engineered molecular machinery with atomic precision. It will take us
another step on the way to the development of revolutionary nanotechnologies
that will transform our lives for the better."

The annual Feynman Prizes recognize significant advancements on the road to the
award of the $250,000 Feynman Grand Prize, an incentive prize that will be
awarded to the first researchers to make a nanometer-scale robotic arm and a
nanometer-scale computing device, two critical components of an atomic scale
molecular manufacturing system.

The Foresight Feynman Prizes were established by the Foresight Institute in
1993 and named in honor of Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman whose influential
essay, "Plenty of Room at the Bottom" inspired the first work on nanoscale
science. The Institute awards Feynman prizes each year to recognize
researchers - one for theoretical work and one for empirical research - whose
recent work has most advanced the field toward the achievement of Feynman's
vision for nanotechnology: molecular manufacturing, the construction of
atomically-precise products through the use of molecular machine systems.

For more information about the Foresight Feynman Prizes, past winners and the
Feynman Grand Prize please see the information on the Foresight website at
www.foresight.org (http://www.foresight.org/) . For more information about
prizes and prize nominations please contact fore...@foresight.org
(mailto:fore...@foresight.org) .

Copyright (c) 2012 Foresight Instiitute, All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
PO Box 61058, Palo Alto, CA 94306 USA
** follow on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/foresightnano/ )
** friend on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/grasshoff )