It is a species of small Nobel Prize in Lombard sauce, not only for the origin of the winners, but also for the way in which the prize must be spent.
Also this year the three best researchers were awarded in Lombardy, with a total sum of one million euros that must be invested within the regional borders. This is how the Lombardy Region celebrates its i dayinnovation and research: we grow in the world but we return to the territory.
Here are the names. Marcella Bonchio, Markus Antonietti and Pierre Joliot. They are the three scientists who have won the international prize “Lombardy is research”, which awards one million to the best discovery in life sciences, according to a jury of 15 researchers chaired by Andrea Ferrari, professor of Nanotechnology at the University of Cambridge.
Scholars were rewarded for the process it brings clean energy from artificial photosynthesis inspired by the mechanisms of nature. The three worked to understand and maximize the efficiency of photosynthesis to rebalance the excess of CO2 emissions and at the same time create systems capable of reproducing the heart of this natural process: the splitting of water into oxygen and hydrogen, its components, using only sunlight. In this way, a completely green hydrogen is obtained. This year’s theme was precisely environmental sustainability.
The Frenchman Joliot is a biologist and professor emeritus at the Collège de France; Bonchio is a teacher full professor of Chemical Sciences at the University of Padua and German Antonietti is director of the Institute for colloids and interfaces at the Max Planck Institute. “This is a very positive moment for research.”