
Stanley N. Cohen
Wolf Prize Laureate in Medicine 1981

The members of the Prize Committee in Medicine recommend the award of the 1981 Wolf Prize jointly to Stanley N. Cohen and Barbara McClintock.
Stanley N. Cohen
Stanford University, School of Medicine
Stanford, California, USA
Although a number of workers have contributed to the concepts underlying genetic engineering based on recombinant DNA, Professor Stanley N. Cohen and his colleagues were the first to construct, in 1973, a biologically functional hybrid plasmid and in the following year to achieve actual expression of a foreign gene implanted in E. coli by the recombinant DNA method. Dr. Cohen has exercised a central and seminal role in discovering and developing this methodology, and in demonstrating its usefulness for analysing complex genetic elements, and for obtaining expression of foreign genes in bacterial cells.
