HUMANIST ASSOCIATION HONORS HAUPTMAN

Dr. Herbert A. Hauptman of Snyder, Buffalo's Nobel Laureate and president of the Hauptman Woodward Medical Research Institute (HWI), will be the 2006 recipient of the American Humanist Association's Isaac Asimov Science Award.

According to the American Humanist Association (AHA), the award is to "recognize a person or team of researchers whose scientific work has contributed significantly to the advancement of humanist values. It also is to recognize those scientists and advocates of science who have increased the public awareness, understanding and appreciation of science and the scientific approach."

This is the third time this award has been given since its creation in 2004. "The spectacular advances of science and technology in the 20th century and the current trends hold enormous promise for good and an equally great threat to our very survival," Dr. Hauptman said.

"The promise is that the fruits of science will be used for the benefit of mankind, leading to never ending improvement in the quality of life for everyone; the threat is that the fruits of science will be used for destructive purposes, leading to consequences ranging from devastating pollution of the environment to the destruction of human life by nuclear holocaust."

Fred Edwords, editorial director of the American Humanist Association, said the organization wishes to honor working scientists who have advanced human knowledge and understanding of the natural universe and therefore have advanced the naturalism inherent in the Humanist outlook.

After more than 20 years with the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., Dr. Hauptman joined the staff of the Hauptman Woodward Medical Research Institute in 1970 (then known as the Medical Foundation of Buffalo).

In 1985, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Although he is a mathematician by training who has taken only one chemistry course in his life, he was able to use classical mathematics to resolve an issue that had stymied chemists for decades. He is currently serving, at age 88, as president of the research institute that bears his name and continues his work with the hope that his latest contributions also will have an impact on health care.

Hauptman Woodward Medical Research Institute is an independent, non-profit facility specializing in the area of fundamental biomedical research known as structural biology. HWI is located in the heart of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus in a new state-of-the-art structural biology research center at 700 Ellicott St. For more information, visit www.hwi.buffalo.edu.