The 2013 Pittcon Heritage Award honours Bruker Group founder
Günther Laukien (1924–1997) recognized as “one of the great pioneers” in analytical chemistry.
The 12th annual Pittcon Heritage Award, which recognizes outstanding individuals whose entrepreneurial careers shaped the instrumentation and laboratory supplies community, was presented at a special ceremony in honour of Günther Laukien (1924–1997) at the 2013 Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy (Pittcon [17–21 March 2013, PA, USA]). His son, Frank Laukien, President and Chief Executive Officer of Bruker Corporation, received the award.
Jointly sponsored by Pittcon and the Chemical Heritage Foundation, the award recognizes outstanding individuals whose entrepreneurial careers have inspired achievement, promoted public understanding of the modern instrumentation sciences, and highlighted the role of analytical chemistry in world economies.
Thomas Tritton, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Chemical Heritage Foundation, commented, “Dr Günther Laukien is one of the great pioneers in the field of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. In the early 1960s he saw a need for high-power solids and high-resolution liquids NMR spectrometers and founded the original Bruker Physik AG 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.”
Pittcon, which is in its 64th year, comprises the Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh and the Society for Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh, and attracts nearly 20,000 attendees from 90 countries worldwide.