MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mario Molina,
the 1995 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry and the only Mexican scientist to receive this award
, died Wednesday in his hometown of Mexico City, at the age of 77.
His family reported the death in a brief statement released through the website of the study center that bears his name and in which the cause of death was not mentioned.
Molina
was awarded
with the American Frank Sherwood Rowland and the Dutch Paul Crutzen
for his research on climate change
.
Two female geneticists win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Oct. 7, 202000: 18
Molina and Rowland published an article in 1974 that predicted the thinning of the ozone layer as a consequence of the emission of certain industrial gases, chlorofluorocarbons.
[An American astronomer and two other scientists win the Nobel Prize in Physics for their studies of black holes]
His work contributed to the drafting of the first international treaty on this issue, the United Nations Montreal Protocol, and later
focused on how to deal with air pollution in large cities, including the Mexican capital
, and on promoting global actions in favor of of sustainable development.
One of his last public interventions was in a videoconference with Claudia Sheinbaum, head of government of Mexico City, in which Molina made several reflections on the current coronavirus pandemic, among them,
the importance of using a mask to prevent the transmission of the virus
.
[Two women win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for creating a tool to modify the genome]
Molina was a member, among other institutions, of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine of the United States, and for eight years he was one of the 21 scientists who served on the Council of Advisers on Science and Technology of US President Barack Obama .
Only two other Mexicans have been awarded the prestigious Swedish prize: Alfonso García Robles won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982 for his negotiations in favor of the prohibition of nuclear weapons and the writer Octavio Paz, who received the Prize for Literature in 1990.
