|
Dr. Sanjiv Sam Gambhir receives the Holst Medal
November 20, 2003
Dr. Sanjiv Sam Gambhir, Director of the MIPS, was selected to present the 2003 Holst Medal at a symposium on molecular imaging, organized by Philips Research, Philips Medical Systems and Technical University at Eindhoven in the Netherlands. In addition, he received a medal designed by Dutch sculptor Jos Reniers for this year's 25th anniversary of the Holst lecture. The annual award recognizes Dr. Gambhir's many outstanding contributions including innovative uses of imaging approaches to gene therapy. Gilles Holst, the award's namesake, was the first director of Philips Research Laboratories and one of the founders of the Dutch university.
List of Holst Memorial Lecture Award recipients
| 1977 | Dr. Alexander King, Director OECD, Paris France |
| 1978 | Prof.dr. Cristopher Freeman, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK |
| 1979 | Prof.dr. Carl Friedrich Von Weizsacker, Max Plank Institute, Starnberg Germany |
| 1980 | Prof Kevin Lynch, MIT, Cambridge, USA |
| 1981 | Prof.dr. Hendrik B. Casimir, Philips N.V., Eindhoven, the Netherlands |
| 1982 | Dr. Michiyuki Uenohara, Nippon Electric Co, Kawasaki, Japan |
| 1983 | Prof.dr. Joseph Wiezenbaum, MIT, Cambridge, USA |
| 1984 | Prof. John M. Ziman, F.R.S., Imperial College London, UK |
| 1985 | Prof. Ilya Prigogine, Nobel Laureate, The Solvay Insitute, Brussels, Belguim |
| 1986 | Prof. Sir Hermann Bondi, F.R.S., Churchill College, Cambridge, UK |
| 1987 | Prof.dr. Dick Swaab, Ditch Institute for Brain Research, Amsterdam, the Netherlands |
| 1988 | Prof.dr. Abraham Pais, Rockefeller university, New York, USA |
| 1989 | Sir John Maddox, Nature Magazine, London, UK |
| 1990 | Prof.dr. Cornelis M. Braams, FOM-Institute Plasma Physics, Nieuwegein, the Netherlands |
| 1991 | Prof.dr. Philippe G. de Gennes, Nobel Laureate, ESPCI, Paris, France |
| 1992 | Dr. Arno A. Penzias, Nobel Laureate, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Holmdel, USA |
| 1993 | Prof.dr. Henk C. van de Hulst, University of Leiden, the Netherlands |
| 1994 | Prof.dr. Donald P. Greenberg, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA |
| 1995 | Prof.dr. Hubert Curien, Univerisite Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris Frrance |
| 1996 | Prof.dr. Serguei P. Kapitza, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia |
| 1997 | Prof.dr. Nicholas Negroponte, MIT, Cambridge, USA |
| 1998 | Prof.dr. Alan J. Heeger, Nobel Laureate, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA |
| 1999 | Prof.dr. H. Koenraad Hemkee, University of Maastricht, the Netherlands |
| 2000 | Dr. Rod C. Alferness, Lucent Technologies, Holmdel, USA |
| 2001 | Dr. John L. Hennessy, Stanford University, Stanford, USA |
| 2002 | Dr. Harold G. Craighead, Cornell university, Ithica, USA |
About the Holst Memorial Lecture
The first Holst Memorial Lecture was given in 1977 to commemorate the 21st anniversary of the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven. With support from Philips Research, the Holst Lecture became an annual tradition, to be given by a most eminent scientist in a selected research domain to an audience consisting of university staff, students, representatives from industry and other guests with a general interest in science and technology.
The general theme chosen for these lectures reflects the important contribution of Gilles Holst (1886-1968) to the development of research and technology in the Netherlands; bhe development of applied sciences, particularly mathematics and the natural sciences, for the benefit of industry on the one side and their implications for society on the other.
In his own academic career he had played a part in the discovery of superconductivity by Nobel Laureate Kamerlingh Onnes, whilst working at the University of Leiden. However, Gilles Holst will be first and foremost remembered as the founding director of the famous 'Nat Lab', the Philips Physics Laboratory in Eindhoven, where he worked between 1914 and 1946.
During his lifetime, Gilles Holst had been chairman of two commissions that were instrumental in establishing the second Dutch university of technology in Eindhoven.
About the Holst Medal
When the Holst Organizing Committee asked Dutch artist Jos Reniers (*1948) to design a bronze medal, they started a collaboration with one of the best known artists in this field in the Netherlands.
In preparing his design for the medal, Jos Reniers combined the name 'Holst' with some of the elements of the characters of both Philips Electronics and Technische Universiteit Eindohoven (TU/e). In the process of coming up with a final design, he used words like 'dynamism, perspective, innovation, perpetual motion, natural sciences, contrast and cooperation' as a starting point.
'From my point of view, the design for an object like this Holst medal should not be too obvious at first sight. It should invite the recipients to take it into their hands from time to time, feel its weight and form their own opinion about what it stands for. I like to keep it a bit mysterious.'
In this design for the Holst Medal, Jos Reniers explored the possibilities to make an object that would consist of two parts ('there are two partners represented in the Holst Committee') and would have enough weight and poise to be placed in a standing position. 'I also like the idea that the final design offers a number of perspectives to look at. It combines geometrical and organic forms'.
The actual casting of the medal took place in the 'Beeldesnstorm' Atelier, an independent facility for professional artists based on th ecampus of TU/e. The technique they use for their casting is called 'cire perdu', in which they use wax to form the shape of the cast object, that is later to be filled with bronze. The design for the Holst Memorial Lecture Award medal highlights a new fase in the work fo the Helmond artist, who is also known as a sculptor.
As of 2003, each recipient of the Lecture Award will receive a handmade copy of the medal. |
