Brussels, 09/11/2000 (Agence Europe) - In Brussels on Wednesday, Commissioner Philippe Busquin awarded the third René Descartes European science prize which aims to reward scientific excellence and the prize winners' international teamwork. A jury of ten internationally renowned scientists chaired by Yves Michot, the designer of Concorde, selected the winners. The three winning research teams are led by: - Tim Smith from Birmingham University (United Kingdom), collaborating with a team from Rennes (France) on theoretical astrochemistry; - Dago De Leeuw from Philips Research with the Universities of Eindhoven (Netherlands), Ulm (Germany) and Cambridge (United Kingdom), and the Riso Laboratory (Denmark) on research into a bar code that can be read from a remote terminal; - Alan Lehmann from the University of Sussex (United Kingdom) with Erasmus University (Netherlands) and CNRS in Strasbourg (France) on identifying the gene that controls the rebuilding of tissue (the self-repair mechanism).
The total prizes amount to Euro 660 000 (Euro 50 000 per team on each project). All three projects received an EU grant as part of the Framework Programme for Research.