This year, the theme of the awards is “Life Sciences”, and the Laureates were selected through nominations by a network of nearly 1,000 members of the international scientific community.

The 2010 laureates are:

• Rashika El Ridi (Africa & Arab States): Professor at Cairo University in Egypt, for paving the way towards the development of a vaccine against the tropical disease Schistomiasis/Bilharzia.

• Lourdes J. Cruz (Asia-Pacific): Professor at the Marine Science Institute at the University of the Philippines Diliman in the Philippinesm for the discovery of marine snail toxins that can serve as powerful tools to study brain function.

• Elaine Fuchs (North America): Professor at The Rockefeller University in the United States, for her contributions to our knowledge of skin biology and skin stern cells.

• Anne Dejean-Assemat (Europe): Professor at the Pasteur Institute in France, for her contributions to our knowledge of leukaemia and liver cancers.

• Alejandra Bravo (Latin America): Professor at the Institute of Molecular Microbiology of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma in Mexico, for her work on a bacterial toxin that acts as a powerful insecticide.

The awards ceremony will take place on 4 March 2010 at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. Each Laureate receives US $100,000 in recognition of her contribution to the advancement of science.

Related links

• 10 Years of Action (video)
• 2010 Laureats (video)
• Speech of Ms I. Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO [.pdf] only in french