The Freie Universität (Free University) of Berlin honors Professors George Whitesides and Tobias Ritter

On October 17th, Professor Whitesides was given an honorary doctorate by the Free University's Department of Biology, Chemistry, and Pharmacy. In turn, he gave a speech (in English) on "The Future of Chemistry." The honorary doctorate also signals FU-Berlin's commitment to further collaborations with researchers at Harvard.

On November 1st, Professor Ritter was awarded the Klung-Wilhelmy-Weberbank-Prize for Chemistry, endowed by three independent private foundations and given annually since 1973 to outstanding young German scientists under the age of 40 in the fields of chemistry or physics. The award, for 75,000 Euros, honors Ritter "for his accomplishments in organometallic chemistry, and the stereospecific fluorination of biomedically relevant molecules."