Wolf Prize Laureate 2016: Rice University Professor
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2016 Wolf Prize Laureate in Chemistry

  •   Wolf Prize winner is a Texas Professor
  • 1/15/2016
  • Photo Credit: Rice University
     
    ​Texas professor wins prestigious Israeli science award. Rice University professor K. C. Nicolaou was named as a Laureate of the Wolf Prize in Chemistry. He joins the ranks of Stephen Hawking, Placido Domingo and Jessye Norman, all Wolf Prize winners in their respective fields. Wolf Prize winners often go on to become Nobel prize winners.

    Nicolaou will be given the award by Israel's President Reuven Rivlin before the Knesset. The official ceremony is slated to take place June 2 in Jerusalem.

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  • Regional Israeli Diplomat Congratulates Professor Nicolaou

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    Consul Daniel Agranov of the Israel Consulate to the Southwest United States congratulates Professor Nicolaou. 

  • More About the Award

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    ​Nicolaou, Rice’s Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Chair of Chemistry, and Harvard chemist Stuart Schreiber were announced by the Wolf Foundation in Israel as co-winners of the 2016 Wolf Prize in Chemistry. Eleven of the 46 previous winners of the prize have gone on to win Nobel Prizes in chemistry.

    Nicolaou, Schreiber and five scientists and researchers who won 2016 Wolf Prizes in other fields will share a $500,000 prize. 

    Past winners of the Wolf Prize in Chemistry include Nicolaou’s postdoctoral mentor, E.J. Corey, who went on to Nobel recognition.

  • The Science

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    ​Nicolaou's specialty is total synthesis, an area of organic chemistry dedicated to the complete synthesis of nature’s most complex molecules. Nicolaou has authored or co-authored five books and more than 770 peer-reviewed publications and holds 68 patents. His research has been cited more than 55,000 times.

    He is best known for publishing the first complete synthetic pathway to the natural substance taxol. Marketed as the chemotherapeutic drug paclitaxel, taxol is used to treat ovarian, breast, lung, pancreatic and other cancers and is on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines.

    Since joining Rice’s faculty at the BioScience Research Collaborative, Nicolaou and colleagues have achieved total syntheses of two complex antibiotics, viridicatumtoxin B and CJ-16,264, and several potential cancer-fighting agents, including shishijimicin A and trioxacarcins A, B and C. He has also developed a practical method for the synthesis of chemical building blocks that are widely used in drug discovery research and in the manufacture of drugs and dyes.

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  • Quotes from the Professor

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    • "Not a single person can make science alone. We stand on the shoulders of giants."


    • "[The joy and respect for the prize] is how much other people recognize the field itself, more than recognizing me."  


    • ​​"Part of the meaning of word prize is to share with family and friends."

  • Molecules found in Nature that have been Replicated

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    This image depicts several of the molecules found in nature that have been replicated in the lab of Rice University chemist K.C. Nicolaou, who shares the prestigious 2016 Wolf Prize in Chemistry. 

    CREDIT: K.C. Nicolaou/Rice University