Previous winner of Mustafa Prize donates $160,000

Mehmet Toner, a 2025 Mustafa(pbuh) Prize laureate, endowed his prize money to contribute to the advancement of the Rasul(pbuh) Medal.

MSTF Media reports:

Toner, one of the three laureates of 2025 Mustafa Prize, has requested that his cash prize be devoted to supporting young scientists through the Rasul Medal. Under the statutes of the Mustafa Prize, the cash prize of 500,000 dollars was shared among Toner and the two other laureates.
In previous years, Ugur Sahin (2019), Omid Farrokhzad (2023), and Vahab Mirrokni (2025) have donated their cash prize to help establish and advance the Rasul Medal.

Born in 1958 in Turkey, Mehmet Toner is a professor of biomedical engineering at Harvard Medical School. He won the 2025 Mustafa Prize for the development of nano/microfluidic devices with clinical applications. His technology enables the isolation of cancer cells from blood, supporting early diagnosis, monitoring, and designing precise treatments for patients. 

The Rasul Medal
Previously known as the Young Scientist Medal, the Rasul Medal was founded based on the endowments made by Mustafa Prize laureates, Ugur Sahin, Omid Farrokhzad, and Vahab Mirrokni. It is awarded to scientists under the age of 40 residing in Islamic countries. The inaugural edition of the Medal was held alongside the 6th Mustafa Prize in 2025.  

The Medal is awarded to impactful works in the fields of Life and Medical Science and Technology, Basic and Engineering Sciences, and Computer Science by young scientists from Islamic countries. The candidates must be nominated by a third-party scientific or technological body, such as universities and research centers, reputable scientific and technological associations and institutions, academies of sciences, or science and technology parks.
The candidates for the Rasul Medal must be under 40 years old at the end of the year in which the medal is awarded. This means that candidates for the 2026 Rasul Medal must be born in 1987 or later.

The winners are bestowed a medal, a certificate, and a $10,000 cash prize in each category.

Established as a symbol of excellence and scientific merit of the young generation of scientific talent, the Rasul Medal promotes scientific and technological breakthroughs by young scientists in the Islamic world and recognizes their influential achievements.

MNA