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Kistler Prize
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RECIPIENTS 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
2002 Recipient
Professor Emeritus (Active), Department of Genetics, School of Medicine
Stanford University
 Dr.
Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Professor Emeritus (active) of the School
of Medicine, Stanford University, and one of the world’s
most notable and respected geneticists, was awarded the Kistler Prize
for the year 2002.
Born in Genoa, Italy, in 1922, Dr. Cavalli-Sforza
was educated in medicine and surgery at the University of Pavia, earned
an M.D. in 1944, and practiced medicine briefly before turning his
attention to genetics. For ten years, he focused his work on bacterial
genetics, first at the University of Cambridge and then at Istituto
Sieroterapico Milanese (Milan), where he was Director of Research in
Microbiology. In the 1950s, his interest in the genetics of human populations
and evolution took root, in part because of the original teachings
of his mentor, Professor Adriano Buzzati-Traverso. Dr. Cavalli-Sforza
was Professor of genetics at the University of Parma from 1951 to
1962. From 1962 to 1970, he was both Professor and Director of the
Institute of Genetics at the University of Pavia. He relocated to Stanford
University in 1970, where he was Professor of genetics until his retirement
in 1992, Chairman of the Department of Genetics from 1986 to 1990,
and is now Professor Emeritus.
Dr. Cavalli-Sforza’s research
has been dedicated to the reconstruction of the evolutionary history
of modern humans. He has traced historical migrations by analyzing
the genetic differences between humans living today, employing in his
research not only genetics, but multiple disciplines to track 100,000
years of human and cultural evolution. Building on his years of research,
he was one of the founders of the Human Genome Diversity Project, which
is aimed at accumulating DNA samples from populations all over the
world for a comprehensive study of human genetic difference. He has
remained active in this study, which has so far collected 1,064 cell
lines from all over the world for distribution of DNA to research laboratories.
He was named to receive the Kistler Prize for his dedication to, and
persistence in, this scientific research and inquiry in the face of
criticism from academic, social, cultural, and political opponents.
Dr. Cavalli-Sforza has published his research findings extensively.
Among recent books are Genes, Peoples, and Languages (2000), on how
the genes of modern populations contain a historical record of our
species; The History and Geography of Human Genes (1994), detailing
where human populations originated and how they spread throughout the
world; and The Great Human Diasporas (1995), which focuses on the genetic
evidence for ancient dispersions of humankind.
Among many previous awards
and recognition for Dr. Cavalli-Sforza’s
work are the Balzan Prize for the Science of Human Origins (1999),
the Catalonia Prize (1993), the Chiron Award from the Italian Academy
of Medicine (1998), the Allen Award from the American Society of Human
Genetics (1987), and the Weldon Medal in Biometry, University of Oxford
(1978).
“The result of all this work is that the conclusions from many sources converge toward a standard model of human evolution. The founders of modern humans belonged to a small East African tribe of perhaps 1,000 individuals … these people probably spoke a single language, the origin of all modern languages.”
—From Dr. Cavalli-Sforza’s acceptance speech at the 2002 Kistler Prize Banquet
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