TEHRAN – Three Iranian and two Turkish scientists were announced winners of the Mustafa Prize 2019 during a ceremony which was held at Alzahra University in Tehran on Wednesday.

The winners will be granted cash prizes on November 11, ISNA news agency reported.

The Mustafa Prize is awarded in four categories of information and communication science and technology, life and medical science and technology, nanoscience and nanotechnology and all areas of science and technology.

In the field of life and medical science and technology, the Mustafa Prize 2019 was shared between Ugur Sahin, a Turkish professor of experimental oncology and founder of TRON GmbH, Mainz, Germany, and Ali Khadem Hosseini, an Iranian professor at the University of California-Los Angeles who holds a multi-departmental professorship in bioengineering, radiology, chemical, and biomolecular engineering.

Sahin receives the award for his seminal work on individualized cancer immunotherapies, in particular for the development and clinical testing of mRNA-based vaccines that are tailored to each patient's mutation profile.

In field of all areas of science and technology, three other scientists shared the prize, namely, Umran Inan, a Turkish scientist at Koç University and Stanford University; Hossein Baharvand, an Iranian professor at Royan Institute, and Mohammad Abdolvahed, a faculty member at the University of Tehran.

According to the head of Mustafa Prize scientific committee, Hassan Zohour, 202 research centers and 512 scientists from 52 countries have been invited to submit projects.

Some 1,649 had attended the nomination process of the 2019 Mustafa Prize which has been assessed by 500 jury members and 200 universities from 35 countries.

The Mustafa Prize 2019 programs host over 100 scientists and academics from different countries.

Meanwhile, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Sharif University of Technology, Alzahra University, Imam Sadiq University and Iran Broadcasting University (IBU), will host the 6th Science and Technology Exchange Program (STEP) meetings on November 10.

Winners of the Mustafa Prize receive the Mustafa Medal, a Diploma and $500,000 financed through the endowments made to the prize.

Mustafa Prize 

Mustafa Prize, the Iranian version of the Nobel Peace Prize, was launched in 2013 with the mission to promote science and technology in the Islamic world.

In 2015, the first edition of the prize was held in Tehran and professors Jackie Y. Ying and Omar M. Yaghi were the two winners of the 2015 Mustafa Prize.

The Mustafa Foundation seeks to encourage education and research and is set to play the pioneering role in developing regional relations between science and technology institutions working in member states of the Organization of Islamic Countries.

As the name of the event suggests, the Mustafa Prize is held biennially during the Islamic Unity week in Iran, which is annually celebrated between two dates of the birthday of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) by Sunnis and Shia.

The prize will be granted to the works which are deemed to have improved human life and made tangible and cutting-edge innovations on the boundaries of science or have presented new scientific methodology.

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