Caltech Professor Wins Prize for Genetic Research

The Israel-based Wolf Foundation Monday awarded its $100,000 1991 prize for medicine to Seymour Benzer, a U.S. expert on the structure of genes.

The foundation honored Benzer, a 69-year-old professor at Caltech in Pasadena, for “having generated a new field of molecular neurogenetics by his pioneering research on the dissection of the nervous system and behavior of gene mutations.”

The foundation was established by Ricardo Wolf in 1975 to “promote science and art for the benefit of mankind.”