Wolf Prize

09/10/2026

100 years of discovery at Penn State, with more than one Wolf Prize chapter along the way.
From 1981 Wolf Prize in Agriculture laureate John O. Almquist to 2025 Wolf Prize in Physics laureate Jainendra Jain, Penn State’s research legacy has crossed disciplines and generations.
Penn State

The Oct. 2 Science Matters Spotlight Sessions event celebrated 100 years since the first doctoral degree at Penn State was awarded, in physics.

07/10/2026

𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗮𝗻 𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗮 𝗽𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗻 𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆.
Henri Kagan’s path to scientific greatness was anything but straightforward.
Born near Paris in 1930, his childhood was shaped by World War II, when his family sought refuge in southern France under assumed names. Back at school, Kagan recalled being “not what you would call a good student.” He began on a literary track before discovering his fascination with mathematics, physics and chemistry.

The road remained bumpy:
he initially planned to become an engineer and failed his first entrance exam to chemistry school. He tried again, and succeeded.
That persistence and curiosity eventually helped Kagan become a pioneer of asymmetric catalysis, transforming scientists’ ability to create chiral molecules.

In 2001, Kagan shared the Wolf Prize in Chemistry with Ryoji Noyori and K. Barry Sharpless.
As Kagan later said: “One of the interests of research is to go toward the unknown, and to be attentive to the unexpected.”

A fitting description of his own journey.

01/10/2026

Why does something taste sweet, bitter, salty, sour or umami?
It feels automatic. You take a bite, and your brain seems to know instantly.
But behind that split-second sensation is a remarkably precise biological system — and 2026 Wolf Prize in Medicine Laureate Charles S. Zuker helped reveal how it works.
His research identified the specialized cells and receptors responsible for the basic tastes, and showed how signals from the tongue are carried into distinct pathways in the brain.
In other words, taste isn’t simply about what touches your tongue. It’s about how the nervous system receives that signal, routes it, and ultimately gives it meaning.
Watch the video to see how Zuker’s discoveries helped turn one of our most familiar senses into one of neuroscience’s best-understood systems.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Columbia University

01/10/2026

How do you make reading DNA faster, cheaper and scalable enough to transform medicine?
That question sits at the heart of the breakthrough behind the 2026 Wolf Prize in Chemistry, awarded to Pascal Mayer, Shankar Balasubramanian and David Klenerman.
Their work helped turn DNA sequencing into a massively parallel process, dramatically reducing the cost and time needed to read genetic information, and helping make large-scale genomics possible.
But what does that actually mean? How does next-generation sequencing work, and why was this such a major leap forward?
Watch the video to see the science behind the breakthrough and understand how three researchers helped change the way we read the human genome.
University of Cambridge

01/10/2026

What happens when you cool atoms to almost absolute zero and then learn to control them with extraordinary precision?
That question lies at the heart of the work of 2026 Wolf Prize in Physics Laureates Immanuel F. Bloch and Jun Ye.

Bloch helped turn ultracold atoms into powerful quantum simulators, experimental systems that allow physicists to recreate and study complex quantum behavior in a highly controlled environment.
Ye pushed precision in a different direction, developing optical atomic clocks of remarkable accuracy and stability, opening new ways to measure time, gravity, and even test some of the most fundamental laws of physics.

The science is complex. The idea behind it is surprisingly intuitive: control atoms well enough, and they become tools for exploring questions that ordinary matter cannot easily reveal.
Watch the video to see how their work is giving physicists unprecedented control over the quantum world and why that matters far beyond the laboratory.
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Max Planck Society

01/10/2026

How do mathematicians reveal patterns in structures too complex to see directly?
That is at the heart of the work of 2026 Wolf Prize in Mathematics Laureates David Kazhdan and Joseph Bernstein.
Their discoveries helped build what is now known as geometric representation theory — a field that connects algebra, geometry and symmetry in powerful new ways.
Kazhdan’s work introduced new tools for understanding groups and symmetry, including the influential Kazhdan–Lusztig theory. Bernstein developed ideas such as D-modules and helped create mathematical frameworks that linked representation theory with geometry in entirely new ways.
The result is a mathematical language that allows researchers to move between different fields and uncover relationships that were previously hidden.
Watch the video for a clear visual introduction to their breakthrough — and see how abstract mathematics can connect geometry, algebra and symmetry in surprisingly elegant ways.

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Tel Aviv University USA - AFTAU

01/10/2026

ANNOUNCING THE 2026 WOLF PRIZE LAUREATE IN MEDICINE

The 2026 Wolf Prize in Medicine is awarded to Charles S. Zuker of Columbia University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, “for revolutionizing our understanding of taste, the last of our senses to be elucidated.”
Sweet. Sour. Bitter. Salty. Umami:
Zuker’s research revealed the cells and receptors responsible for each of the five basic tastes - and showed how those signals are encoded and represented in the brain.
His experiments went even further: by rewiring taste receptors in mice, his team demonstrated that what makes something feel “sweet” or “bitter” is not simply the receptor itself, but the specific neural pathway activated between the tongue and the brain.
By defining how chemical signals on the tongue are translated into perception and behavior, Zuker transformed taste from one of the least understood sensory systems into one of the best mapped in modern neuroscience.

Congratulations to Charles S. Zuker, 2026 Wolf Prize Laureate in Medicine.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute Columbia University

01/10/2026

ANNOUNCING THE 2026 WOLF PRIZE LAUREATES IN CHEMISTRY

The 2026 Wolf Prize in Chemistry is awarded to Pascal Mayer, Shankar Balasubramanian and David Klenerman for developing impactful, low-cost, next generation DNA sequencing methods for genomic medicine.
Their work helped transform DNA sequencing into a technology capable of operating at extraordinary speed and scale.
Balasubramanian and Klenerman pioneered a massively parallel sequencing approach that contributed to a million-fold improvement in sequencing speed and cost, helping make it possible to sequence a human genome for under $200.
Mayer played a pivotal role in turning those breakthroughs into a practical high-throughput sequencing system, integrating the chemistry, microfluidics, optics and computational Laureates in Chemistry!

University of Cambridge

01/10/2026

ANNOUNCING THE 2026 WOLF PRIZE LAUREATES IN PHYSICS

The 2026 Wolf Prize in Physics is awarded to Immanuel F. Bloch and Jun Ye “for transformative, widely applicable advances in the control of ultracold atomic systems.”
Their work has pushed experimental physics into realms that were once almost impossible to control.
Bloch established ultracold atoms trapped in optical lattices as a powerful platform for studying complex quantum systems. His work helped define the modern field of quantum simulation, revealing new insights into many-body quantum states and laying foundations for emerging quantum technologies.
Ye, meanwhile, led the development of the world’s most accurate and stable optical atomic clocks, achieving levels of precision that have reshaped how time and frequency can be measured. His work has also opened new ways to test fundamental physics, from relativity to searches for variations in nature’s fundamental constants.
From controlling quantum matter to measuring time with unprecedented precision, their discoveries have expanded what physicists can observe, test, and engineer.

Congratulations to Immanuel F. Bloch and Jun Ye, the 2026 Wolf Prize Laureates in Physics.

Max Planck Society National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

01/10/2026

ANNOUNCING THE 2026 WOLF PRIZE LAUREATES IN MATHEMATICS

The 2026 Wolf Prize in Mathematics is awarded to David Kazhdan of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Joseph Bernstein of Tel Aviv University, “for foundational work on representation theory, automorphic forms and algebraic geometry, and their role in creating geometric representation theory.”
Their work helped build a new mathematical language connecting algebra, geometry and representation theory, ideas that now reach across some of the deepest areas of modern mathematics.
Kazhdan introduced Kazhdan’s property (T), a concept that became fundamental in the study of groups and found applications ranging from geometry to logic. Together with George Lusztig, he also developed the Kazhdan–Lusztig basis and polynomials, work that became foundational to geometric representation theory and influential in the Langlands program.
Bernstein reshaped representation theory through the development of D-modules, now a crucial tool in algebraic geometry, representation theory and logic. His work on perverse sheaves, p-adic groups and automorphic forms helped establish major parts of the framework we now call geometric representation theory.
Together, their ideas have created connections between fields that once seemed separate, and changed the way mathematicians understand symmetry, geometry and structure.
Congratulations to David Kazhdan and Joseph Bernstein, the 2026 Wolf Prize Laureates in Mathematics.

Tel Aviv University USA - AFTAU The Hebrew University of Jerusalem