Biocon's chairperson and managing director Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw will be conferred the 2014 Othmer Gold Medal, which is the top award of US-based Chemical Heritage Foundation.
The Chemical Heritage Foundation, located in Philadelphia, is a collections-based nonprofit organization that preserves the history and heritage of chemistry, chemical engineering, and related sciences and technologies. The collections are used to create a body of original scholarship that illuminates chemistry's role in shaping society.
Shaw will be the 20th recipient of the Othmer Gold Medal and the third woman to receive CHF's most coveted award. CHF established the Othmer Gold Medal in 1997 to honour outstanding individuals who have made multifaceted contributions to chemical and scientific heritage through outstanding activity in such areas as innovation, entrepreneurship, research, education, public understanding, legislation, or philanthropy.
Carsten Reinhardt, president and CEO, Chemical Heritage Foundation said, Shaw was the first woman to become a brew master in India. She utilized her knowledge of fermentation to become one of the greatest entrepreneurs in the history of her nation. In addition to her great success in business, she is among the world's leading philanthropists. She has devoted much of her personal fortune to providing healthcare to the poorest people in her country and to many other philanthropic projects.
Expressing her delight, Shaw said that she was privileged to receive this prestigious honour and join the distinguished list of previous recipients like James Watson, Ahmed Zawail, Robert Langer and many others from whom I have drawn great inspiration and deeply admired.
The medal is presented annually and cosponsored by CHF and four affiliated organizations: the American Chemical Society (ACS), the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), the Chemists' Club, and the Société de Chimie Industrielle. The medal commemorates Donald Othmer (1904–1995), noted researcher, consultant, editor, engineer, inventor, philanthropist, professor, and co-editor of the Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology.
Previous honorees of the Othmer Gold Medal are John D. Baldeschwieler, Arnold O. Beckman, Ronald C. D. Breslow, Thomas Cech, Carl Djerassi, Marye Anne Fox, Mary Lowe Good, Harry B. Gray, George S. Hammond, Jon M. Huntsman, Kazuo Inamori, Ralph Landau, Robert S. Langer, Yuan Tse Lee, Gordon E. Moore, P. Roy Vagelos, James D. Watson, George Whitesides, and Ahmed Zewail.