The 2011 Gregori Aminoff Prize in Crystallography goes to Addadi and Weiner

This Prize rewards contributions in crystallography, including areas concerned with the dynamics of the formation and determination of crystal structures. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2011 Prize to Lia Addadi and Stephen Weiner. Addadi is a Dorothy and Patrick E. Gorman Professor and Chair of Biological Ultrastructure at the Weizmann Inst. where she studies the interactions between crystals and proteins, antibodies, or whole cells. Weiner is the Walter and Trude Borchardt Professorial Chair in Structural Biology at the Weizmann. His research focuses on biomineralization and archaeology. Addado and Weiner have successively identified the biologically controlled texture of biominerals that occurs along specific crystallographic planes on protein crystals, which controls their formation, orientation, size, shape and assembly, and gives rise to the complex shapes of many beautiful marine organisms.