Svetlana Mojsov, one of the Scientists behind Ozempic, and Mathematician Carlos Kenig, who Decoded Laws of Motion, Honored as King Faisal Prize 2026 Laureates

The Landmark 48th Session of the Prize Comes as the King Faisal Foundation Marks 50 Years of Impact

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, April 15, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On the evening of April 15, HRH Prince Turki Alfaisal, Acting Chairman of the Board of Trustees of King Faisal Foundation, and King Faisal Prize Secretary General Dr. Abdulaziz Alsebail took the stage to honor the laureates of the King Faisal Prize's 48th session — a celebration of minds whose work echoed far beyond the walls of their laboratories and lecture halls. The ceremony this year is coinciding with a landmark milestone: the 50th anniversary of the King Faisal Foundation, established in 1976 and launching its Prize in 1979.

Key scientists in medicine and mathematics were celebrated this year — one whose quiet biochemical discovery ignited a revolution in the field of obesity treatments, and another who reached into the depths of pure mathematics and pulled out clarity where there was once only chaos.

Professor Svetlana Mojsov — a biochemist whose early, groundbreaking research on the hormone GLP-1 laid the biological foundation for what would eventually become Ozempic and other obesity therapeutics — was awarded the Medicine Prize. Her work is now at the center of one of the most significant public health revolutions of our time, touching the lives of hundreds of millions of people worldwide who struggle with obesity.

Professor Carlos Kenig claimed the Science Prize in Mathematics for his transformative work on nonlinear partial differential equations — the stubborn, beautiful mathematics that govern everything from the crash of ocean waves to the clarity of a medical scan. Where others saw complexity, Kenig found structure, reshaping the very landscape of modern mathematical analysis.

King Faisal Prize in Medicine Honors the Woman whose Discovery Sparked a Revolution in Treating Obesity and Diabetes

Professor Svetlana Mojsov of Rockefeller University is the biochemist whose foundational research on glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) — a natural hormone that regulates blood sugar and appetite — laid the scientific groundwork for an entirely new class of medications. By discovering GLP-1's biologically active form and identifying its receptors in the pancreas, heart, and brain, she demonstrated its remarkable ability to stimulate insulin secretion, slow digestion, and curb hunger. Her work was so foundational that she is listed as co-inventor on the patents licensed to Novo Nordisk, directly enabling the development of Victoza, Ozempic, and Rybelsus — drugs that have since become household names in the fight against diabetes and obesity.

The ripple effects of her research are staggering in scale. In 2022 alone, obesity affected 890 million adults and 160 million children worldwide — and today, the therapies her discoveries made possible are transforming lives across the globe. In her acceptance speech, she said, “Twenty-five years after we published our findings Novo Nordisk Pharmaceutical Company developed long lasting injectable GLP-1 analogs for diabetes and obesity. I am humbled that my work that started 40 years ago with a hypothesis has benefited the health and lives of millions of people worldwide.” Her journey from basic scientific inquiry to a public health revolution stands as a testament to the power of foundational research.

Her groundbreaking contributions have earned numerous prestigious honors, including the Lasker Award, Tang Prize, Breakthrough Prize, VinFuture Prize, and Princess of Asturias Prize, among others. Time magazine named her one of the 100 Most Influential People in 2024.

King Faisal Prize in Science Awards the Mathematician Whose Equations Help Explain Ocean Waves and Fiber Optics

Professor Carlos Kenig, Louis Block Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, earned this year’s King Faisal Prize in Mathematics. He has had a career making the incomprehensibly complex not only solvable, but useful. His work centers on nonlinear partial differential equations, the mathematical language that describes how things change, move, and evolve in the physical world. By bringing harmonic analysis techniques to bear on these notoriously difficult equations, he has cracked open new frontiers in fluid mechanics, optical fibers, and medical imaging. His research on free boundary problems — think the precise line where ice surrenders to water, or how fluid navigates through soil — has become a cornerstone of modern mathematical analysis.

Perhaps his most far-reaching contribution lies in his decades-long investigation of how complex waves behave over time: whether they dissipate gently or build toward catastrophe. This question sits at the heart of everything from ocean dynamics to light pulses in fiber optics to energy transfer in quantum systems. His insights into when mathematical solutions remain stable — and when they collapse into singularities — have resolved problems that had stumped mathematicians for generations.

Professor Carlos Kenig’s interest in mathematics began at age 12 during a high school lesson on Euclidean geometry, which introduced him to the discipline’s logical rigor and sparked a lasting curiosity. He later credited his academic path to his studies at the University of Chicago and postdoctoral work at Princeton, where he learned from leading mathematicians and further developed his expertise, as he mentioned in his acceptance speech, “I became interested in mathematics at the age of 12, when in my first year of high school in my native country Argentina, our math teacher taught us Euclidean geometry, and how to prove rigorously theorems about triangles. I was hooked from that time on! I then had the very good fortune to study at the University of Chicago, and to be a postdoc at Princeton University, under some of the most outstanding mathematicians of the 20^th century. These experiences influenced the direction of my research, which turned to topics in mathematical analysis, and eventually mostly to the study of the partial differential equations that govern our physical world.”

His brilliance has been recognized with the Salem Prize, the Bôcher Prize, the Solomon Lefschetz Medal, and the ICMAM Latin America Prize, among others, and he has addressed the International Congress of Mathematicians three times — a distinction reserved for the field's most towering figures.

As the King Faisal Foundation Marks its Golden Jubilee, its Prize's 48th Session Celebrates Extraordinary Minds in Arabic Language & Literature, Islamic Studies, and Service to Islam

In addition to honoring advancements in medicine and science, King Faisal Prize also recognized exemplary contributions in Arabic Language and Literature, Islamic Studies, and Service to Islam.

Professor Pierre Larcher, Emeritus Professor of Arabic Linguistics at Aix-Marseille University and Emeritus Researcher at the Institute for Studies and Research on the Arab and Muslim Worlds, won this year's King Faisal Prize for Arabic Language & Literature on the topic of "Arabic Literature in French". His novel presentation of Arabic literature to French readers has earned widespread acclaim from critics and specialists, while his rigorous scholarly approach to classical Arabic literature has made it accessible and appropriate for French culture. His critical translation project of al-Mu'allaqat and rigorous study of pre-Islamic poetry demonstrate exceptional scholarly depth.

For this year's Islamic Studies Prize on "Islamic Trade Routes", Professor Abdelhamid Hussein Mahmoud Hammouda, Professor of Islamic History and Civilization at the Fayoum University, and Professor Mohamed Waheeb Hussein, Professor of Archaeology and History of Art at the Hashemite University, were announced as co-laureates.

Professor Abdelhamid Hussein Mahmoud Hammouda's comprehensive work encompasses trade routes across the Islamic world — the Mashreq, Iraq and Persia, Arabian Peninsula, Greater Syria, Egypt, Sahara, Maghreb, and al-Andalus. This expansive scope delivers a coherent understanding of Islamic trade trajectories across history, serving as an authoritative reference for both specialized research and broader scholarship.

Professor Mohamed Waheeb Hussein's groundbreaking work uses archaeological surveys, GPS documentation, and analytical mapping to systematically correlate Qur'anic texts with geographical data. His research offers definitive scholarly interpretation of the Route of al-Īlāf, significantly advancing documentation of early Arabian Peninsula trade routes.

As for the Service to Islam Prize, this year Sheikh Abdullatif bin Ahmed Alfozan and Professor Dr. Mohamed Mohamed Hassanin Aboumousa were announced as co-laureates.

The King Faisal Prize 2026 ceremony is a historical milestone. The King Faisal Foundation turned 50, marking half a century of championing human excellence. Established by the Foundation in 1977 and first awarded in 1979, the King Faisal Prize has since honored 308 laureates from 45 countries in recognition of their outstanding contributions across various fields of science and humanitarian causes. Each laureate from the prize’s 5 categories is endowed with USD 200 thousand; a 24-carat gold medal weighing 200 grams; and a Certificate inscribed with the Laureate's name and a summary of their work which qualified them for the prize.

Attachments

Maysa Shawwa
King Faisal Prize
Maysa.Shawwa@kff.com

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