The Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF) is to present the 2013 Pittcon Heritage Award in honour of Günther Laukien (1924–1997), the founder of the Bruker group of companies.
Jointly sponsored by the Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy (Pittcon) and CHF, this award recognises outstanding individuals whose entrepreneurial careers have shaped the scientific instrumentation community, inspired achievement, promoted public understanding of the modern instrumentation sciences, and highlighted the role of analytical chemistry in world economies.
This 12th annual award will be presented at next month’s Pittcon 2013, which will be held in Philadelphia from 17–21 March.
‘Dr Günther Laukien is one of the great pioneers in the field of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy,’ said Thomas Tritton, President and CEO of CHF. ‘In the early 1960s he saw a need for high-power solids and high-resolution liquids NMR spectrometers and founded the original Bruker Physik to develop, make, and distribute the new devices. Within a decade his innovative NMR and EPR systems were sold around the world, and were later complemented by preclinical MRI, FT-IR, FT-Raman, and mass spectrometers.’
Frank Laukien, President and CEO of Bruker Corporation today, will receive the Pittcon Heritage Award in his father’s honour at the Pittcon conference and exposition on laboratory science.
The Pittsburgh Conference donates nearly US$1m dollars each year in the form of science-equipment grants, research grants, scholarships and internships for students, awards to teachers and professors, and grants to public-science centres, libraries, and museums.
