The researchers are Professors Yonatan Erez, Ilana Gouzes, Gal Kaminka, Sergio de la Pergola and Malachi Beit Aryeh
The winners of the 2013 Landau Arts and Sciences Lottery Prize for a total of 1.2 million shekels - one hundred thousand for each winner - have been announced.
The Landau Arts Lottery Prize for 2013 is awarded, for the twelfth year, to artists and creators for outstanding and high-quality artistic activity from the recent period, which has a significant contribution and impact on culture and art in Israel.
The Landau Science and Research Lottery Prize for 2013 is awarded, for the twelfth year, to Israeli scientists who have achieved meritorious achievements in their field and made a valuable contribution to the advancement of science and research. The award is considered one of the most significant and prestigious awards given in this field in Israel. As part of the Landau Lottery Prizes, 5 prizes will be awarded in the fields of science and research
Ilana Gozes - Tel Aviv University
Life sciences - medicinal chemistry and pharmacology. Judges: Prof. Ehud Gazit, Dr. Aharon Schwartz, Prof. Amiram Goldblum Researcher Award - Prof. Ilana Gouzes from Tel Aviv University.
The Landau Science and Research Lottery Award in the field of medicinal chemistry and pharmacology was given to Prof. Ilana Gozes for her outstanding research activity that combines basic biological and biochemical research at an outstanding level and quality together with activity to develop innovative drugs for neurodegenerative and psychiatric diseases. Prof. Guzes is a prolific, creative and ground-breaking researcher who has made a central and essential contribution to the field of life sciences and medicinal chemistry and who leads a great deal of activity in transferring results from academic research to industry. Her research in the field of pharmacology and medicinal chemistry is widely published and she is a highly respected researcher in the international scientific community. Prof. Guzes identified and isolated new proteins of central importance to the development of the brain and its function. She studied the roles of the proteins in the healthy brain and their activity in protection against various disorders. In a reductionist and innovative approach, Prof. Gozes characterized short active segments of the proteins that may be used as medicinal substances. Prof. Gozes plays a central role in the development of drugs that protect the vital organ in our body - the human brain. For Prof. Gozes' significant activity in promoting research and drug development, the committee of judges decided to award her the 2013 Science and Research Lottery Award.
Prof. Yonatan Erez, Hebrew University
Natural sciences - marine sciences and the marine environment. Judges: Prof. Amos Tendler, Prof. Aldo Shemesh, Prof. Moshe Mbarech. Researcher Award - Prof. Yonatan Erez
Prof. Yonatan Erez investigates the formation mechanism in the sea of calcareous skeletons of corals and foraminifers (single-celled organisms with a calcareous skeleton). This process is central to biology and geology and causes most of the carbon on the face of the earth to be stored in limestone rocks (calcium carbonate) and not in the atmosphere, thus enabling life on the surface of the globe. The creation of the calcareous skeletons helps to document the history of the oceanic environment and through it also the history of the atmosphere and the surface of the continents. The preservation of calcareous skeletons also made possible the science of paleontology which enables the identification of fossils and contributed to a large extent the factual basis for the theory of evolution
Prof. Erez laid a solid foundation for studying the influence of external factors, such as the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere or the degree of acidity in the oceans, on the creation of calcareous skeletons. His research showed that the acidification of seawater, which is already occurring in the oceans, leads to a drastic decrease in the intensity of building the skeletons of calcareous organisms. The investment mechanism discovered by Erez explains the great sensitivity of corals to an increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and according to his research there is currently a 40% decrease in the construction of coral reefs. His results predict that doubling the amount of gas in the atmosphere compared to the concentration that preceded massive industrialization in the 20th and 21st centuries will lead to the beginning of the melting of coral reefs all over the world.
Based on his groundbreaking research, his contributions to marine science on a global scale, the promotion of marine research in Israel, and the education of trailblazers, we recommend the awarding of the Landau Award to Prof. Erez.
Prof. Gal Kaminka, Bar-Ilan University
In the field of exact sciences - robotics. Judges: Avi Seifert, Prof. Hugo Guterman, Dr. Eli Kolberg. Prize for a researcher - Prof. Gal Kaminka
The Landau Prize is awarded to Prof. Gal Kaminka from Bar Ilan University for his extensive scientific activity in the theoretical research of robotics in the broadest sense, artificial intelligence and multi-agent systems, and their practical application. Together with his students, Prof. Kaminka deals with the design, control and learning approaches of robot teams. Gal made significant contributions regarding the control of multi-robot group actions in dynamic environments and innovative algorithms for solving the problem of efficient tracking of distributed robots. Together with his students, Gal presented a new concept of algorithms for patrols as well as planning, control, and learning approaches for a variety of multi-robot systems. Prof. Kaminka has over 150 scientific publications and he wrote about 30 chapters in scientific books. Prof. Kaminka won 12 awards, funded 23 studies and holds 7 patents. He is a committee member at 17 conferences, served as a supervisor for 24 master's degree graduates and ten PhD graduates.
Prof. Sergio de la Pergola, Hebrew University
In the field of social sciences - demography and immigration, judges: Prof. Uzi Rabhon, Prof. Ephraim Yaer, Arnon Mantbartz Prize for researcher - Prof. Sergio Della Pergola.
Even though the award can be given in one of the fields, i.e. either demography or immigration, Prof. Della Pergola meets both fields: demography and immigration together. Furthermore, from the materials we had at our disposal, we got the impression that Prof. Della-Pergola is one of the top demographers in Israel today. He is considered the "dean" of the demographics of the Jews, including that of the Israeli population. He researched many and complementary demographic aspects including fertility, family, marriage, social mobility, population projections where migration is one of the main focuses of his scientific work not only in the Jewish world but also outside of it. Della-Pergola's research is characterized by a comprehensive view, spanning the world and over time, of the Jewish people and he demonstrates exceptional skills of meticulously collecting data, bringing them to a common denominator, analyzing and interpreting them in the context of worldwide processes, trends in the country of residence of the Jews, and patterns of the Jewish demographic specifically. Prof. Della-Pergola developed typologies, paradigms and a conceptual system that today is impossible not to use in the study of the demographics of the Jews in general and that of Israel in particular and within this also in the field of Jewish immigration. His works on immigration refer to the phenomenon in its holistic form involving push factors in the country of origin, pull factors in the destination country, characteristics of immigrants, immigration policy, absorption, the role of immigration in the demographic changes of the sending and receiving Jewish population, and the absorption of the Jews in the new society both socially and economically and in terms of identification.
Prof. Della-Pergola's writing is eloquent and fascinating and he does so making optimal use of his command of several languages, including Hebrew, English, Italian, Spanish, and French.
In light of the above, the members of the committee unanimously decided to propose to the Board of Directors of the Landau Foundation to select Prof. Sergio Della-Pergola as the winner of the Michael Landau Science and Research Lottery Prize in the field of social sciences - demography and immigration - for 2013.
Prof. Malachi Beit-Aryeh
In the field of humanities - Jewish history and cultures in the Middle Ages. Judges: Dr. Ram Ben Shalom, Dr. Avriel Bar Levev, Dr. Katrina Rigo. Researcher Award - Prof. Malachi Beit Aryeh, Director of the National Library
Malachi Beit-Aria in his pioneering studies in the field of Hebrew manuscripts made a unique contribution to the study of the creation of the Jews in the Middle Ages, their history and culture. He founded a new discipline, the Hebrew codicology, which deals with the book in the form of a codex in all its aspects and includes, as one of its aspects only (the script), paleography. Beit-Aria maintains that codicology does not see manuscripts as a tool for the transmission of texts only, but as "cultural artifacts" that deserve to be subjects of research in the social and cultural history of the Middle Ages. As early as 1965, when together with Colt Sirat he initiated the founding of the Hebrew Paleography Institute, Beit-Aria based his research on an innovative method of quantitative codicology. Although the beginnings of Hebrew codicology were close to the beginnings of Latin and Greek codicology, the attempt to create a diachronic and synchronic typology of dated manuscripts based on the quantitative method was the first in the world and was expressed as early as 1977 in Beit-Aria's book Hebrew Codicology: Tentative Typology of Technical Practices Employed in Hebrew Dated Medieval Manuscripts.
Since then, with dozens of books and about a hundred articles (some of them in collaboration with Sirat), Beit-Aria has enriched the Jewish sciences in a new field and methodology and added an important chapter in the history of the Jewish people and its culture.
The winners in the arts
The winners in the field of arts in the field of documentary cinema (director) will be awarded a prize to director Anat Tzuria. In the field of dance, a prize will be awarded to choreographer Amos Hatz. In the field of theater (actor), an award will be given to the actress Lasalva Nakara. In the field of jazz music, a prize will be awarded to the creator Amos Hoffman. In the field of Israeli music, a prize will be awarded to Ethi Ankri. In the field of visual art-painting, the prize will be awarded to the artist Chen Sheesh. In the field of poetry, a prize will be awarded to Norit Zarhi.
