family descended from Oghuz Turks who once migrated from Central Asia. He also said that his brother's Nobel Prize was an honor for all of Turkey, including the Kurds. In an interview, Sancar stated that in his youth, he was an idealist but he didn't participate in activities. In another interview, Sancar stated that he supports moderate Pan-Turkism. On September 26, 2021, Sancar was the honorary guest of the Turkic Council on occasion of the meeting of the foreign secretaries from member states and has given a presentation titled "Knowledge and the National Awakening of the Turkic World", as announced by Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu. Awards He was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Tomas Lindahl and Paul L. Modrich for their mechanistic studies of DNA repair. He was granted Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation in Molecular Biophysics in 1984. Sancar is the second Turkish Nobel laureate after Orhan Pamuk, who is also an alumnus of Istanbul University. Aziz Sancar donated his original Nobel Prize golden medal and certificate to the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, with a presidential ceremony on 19 May 2016, which is the 97th anniversary of Atatürk initiating the Turkish War of Independence. He delivered a replica of his Nobel medal and certificate to Istanbul University, from which he earned his MD. References External links of the Aziz & Gwen Sancar Foundation 1946 births Turkish people of Arab descent Living people Nobel laureates in Chemistry Turkish biochemists Turkish emigrants to the United States Turkish medical researchers Turkish Nobel laureates Recipients of TÜBİTAK Science Award Istanbul University alumni University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty University of Texas at Dallas alumni Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Honorary members of the Turkish Academy of Sciences Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences People from Savur American academics of Turkish descent American Nobel laureates American biochemists Members of the National Academy of Medicine