Isabella L. Karle, who pioneered new ways to study the three-dimensional structure of molecules, making use of both X-ray and electron diffraction, has been selected to receive the 1993 Bower Award and Prize in Science.

The four-year-old award, which consists of a gold medal and a cash prize of $250,000, will be presented in April by Philadelphia's Franklin Institute Science Museum to honor outstanding work in the life or physical sciences.The international committee that chose the 72-year-old chemist, who becomes the first woman to win the award, said that Karle is being recognized for facilitating wide-ranging research in chemistry, biology, and medicine. Her specialty, three-dimensional molecular modeling--which relies on detailed X-ray structures to determine accuracy and parameters--has contributed to the discovery of new pharmaceutical agents for many diseases.

But Karle, a senior scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, D.C., stresses that it was her husband, Jerome, who...

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