Israel honors Israeli, US scientists, Canadian architect

Israel's Wolf Foundation has announced it will honor five American scientists, an Israeli scientist and a Canadian architect with this year's prestigious prize.

Wolf laureates are viewed as strong contenders for the Nobel prizes. The 2016 winners were announced by the foundation on Wednesday. The seven winners share $100,000 awards in five categories—agriculture, chemistry, physics, medicine and architecture.

The agriculture prize goes to Trudy Mackay, from North Carolina State University "for pioneering studies on the genetic architecture of complex traits and the discovery of fundamental principles of quantitative genetics with broad applications for agricultural improvements."

Yoseph Imry, from Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science, and architect Phyllis Lambert from Canada are among the winners.

Israel's president is to award the prizes in June in Jerusalem.

© 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.