Two Canadians and an American win the prestigious Kyoto Prize
The Kyoto Prize, an international award that honours those who have contributed significantly to the scientific, cultural and spiritual betterment of humankind is awarded annually to recipients working in advanced technology, basic sciences, and arts and philosophy. Life sciences is honoured once every four years.
Dr Pawson will be presented with a diploma, a 20-karat gold Kyoto Prize medal and
¥ 50m in November in Kyoto, Japan for "Proposing and Proving the Concept of Adapter Molecules in the Signal Transduction" His discoveries contribute to every aspect of medical research and have relevance for the understanding and treatment of a host of diseases including cancer, diabetes, and disorders of the immune system. His insights on cancer cell signaling have also underpinned effective new approaches to cancer treatment. He is a distinguished investigator at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital and a professor at the University of Toronto.
He will be joined by fellow Canadian Dr Charles Margrave Taylor, Kyoto Prize laureate in arts and philosophy for constructing a social philosophy that Actively Pursues the Harmonious Coexistence of Diverse Cultures. By advocating "communitarianism" and "multiculturalism" from the perspective of "holistic individualism," Dr. Taylor has developed an enlightened philosophy that allows people of different historical, traditional, and cultural backgrounds to retain their multiple identities while living together peacefully.He is a philosopher and professor emeritus at McGill University in Montreal.
American Dr Richard Karp, is the third Kyoto Prize laureate in advanced technology for 
his fundamental contributions to the development of the Theory of Computational Complexity which began in the early 1970s by establishing the theory of NP-completeness, having a profound influence on the guiding principles for analysis and design of algorithms. A professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at University of California, Berkeley, and a senior research scientist at the International Computer Science Institute.
Source: http://www.kyotoprize.org/