Kurt Wuthrich

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2002
Nobel co-recipients: John B. Fenn, Koichi Tanaka

"for his development of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy for determining the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules in solution."

Nobel Prize Cash and Philanthropy

Kurt Wuthrich, a Swiss scientist who has worked in the US was awarded half of the Chemistry Nobel Prize cash of a total of about a million dollars.

In Switzerland, the official retirement age is sixty five. After that age people are not permitted to work full time. When the prize was awarded, Wuthrich had just turned sixty four years of age. Hence he chose to use the Nobel Prize money to establish a laboratory in the US. Upon hearing the news that he was awarded the Nobel, he was surprised and overjoyed. He was also “Happy that the prize was coming to Switzerland".