Today, November 27, a letter is being sent on behalf of 156 Nobel Prize winners to the Iranian Head of State Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, asking for the release of Ahmadrez Djalali. It was Sir Richard J. Roberts who took the initiative and informed VUB about this. Roberts, together with Phillip Allen Sharp, won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1993.

The list of signing Nobel Laureates also includes two honorary doctors from VUB: John B. Gurdon (Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine) and Frederik Willem De Klerk (Nobel Prize for Peace, together with Nelson Mandela). The VUB approached all its honorary doctorates with the question if they want to take action in support of professor Djalali. 

Names of the Nobel Prize winners standing up for professor Djalali:

Peter Agre (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2003)- Sidney Altman (Nobel Prize Chemistry 1989)- Frances H. Arnold (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2018)- Paul Berg (Nobel Prize Chemistry 1980)- Thomas R. Cech (Nobel Prize Chemistry 1989)- Martin Chalfie (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2008)- Aaron Ciechanover (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2004)- Elias James Corey (Nobel Prize Chemistry 1990)- Robert F. Curl Jr. (Nobel Prize Chemistry 1996)- Johann Deisenhofer (Nobel Prize Chemistry 1988)- Gerhard Ertl (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2007)- Joachim Frank (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2017)- Walter Gilbert (Nobel Prize Chemistry 1980)- Robert H. Grubbs (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2005)- Richard Henderson (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2017)- Dudley R. Herschbach (Nobel Prize Chemistry 1986)- Avram Hershko (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2004)- Roald Hoffmann (Nobel Prize Chemistry 1981)- Robert Huber (Nobel Prize Chemistry 1988)- Brian K. Kobilka (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2012)- Roger D. Kornberg (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2006)- Yuan T. Lee (Nobel Prize Chemistry 1986)- Robert J. Lefkowitz (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2012)- Jean-Marie Lehn (Nobel Prize Chemistry 1987)- Michael Levitt (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2013)- Tomas Lindahl (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2015)- Hartmut Michel (Nobel Prize Chemistry 1988)- Paul L. Modrich (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2015)- William E. Moerner (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2014)- Kary B. Mullis (Nobel Prize Chemistry 1993)- John C. Polanyi (Nobel Prize Chemistry 1986)- Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2009)- Jean-Pierre Sauvage (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2016)- Richard R. Schrock (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2005)- K. Barry Sharpless (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2001)- George P. Smith (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2018)- Thomas A. Steitz (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2009)- Sir James Fraser Stoddart (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2016)- Sir John E. Walker (Nobel Prize Chemistry 1997)- Arieh Warshel (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2013)- M. Stanley Whittingham (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2019)- Sir Gregory P. Winter (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2018)- Kurt Wuthrich (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2002)- Ada E. Yonath (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2009)- Akira Yoshino (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2019)- George A. Akerlof (Nobel Prize Economics 2001)- Robert J. Aumann (Nobel Prize Economics 2005)- Oliver Hart (Nobel Prize Economics 2016)- Finn E. Kydland (Nobel Prize Economics 2004)- Robert E. Lucas Jr. (Nobel Prize Economics 1995)- Eric S. Maskin (Nobel Prize Economics 2007)- Daniel L. McFadden (Nobel Prize Economics 2000)- Robert C. Merton (Nobel Prize Economics 1997)- Robert A. Mundell (Nobel Prize Economics 1999)- Edmund S. Phelps (Nobel Prize Economics 2006)- Alvin E. Roth (Nobel Prize Economics 2012)- Christopher A. Sims (Nobel Prize Economics 2011)- Vernon L. Smith (Nobel Prize Economics 2002)- A. Michael Spence (Nobel Prize Economics 2001)- Oliver E. Williamson (Nobel Prize Economics 2009)- Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio (Nobel Prize Literature 2008)- J. M. Coetzee (Nobel Prize Literature 2003)- Elfriede Jelinek (Nobel Prize Literature 2004)- Patrick Modiano (Nobel Prize Literature 2014)- Herta Muller (Nobel Prize Literature 2009)- Alice Munro (Nobel Prize Literature 2013)- Orhan Pamuk (Nobel Prize Literature 2006)- Wole Soyinka (Nobel Prize Literature 1986)- Mario Vargas Llosa (Nobel Prize Literature 2010)- Francoise Barre-Sinoussi (Nobel Prize Medicine 2008)- J. Michael Bishop (Nobel Prize Medicine 1989)- Gunter Blobel (Nobel Prize Medicine 1999)- Sydney Brenner (Nobel Prize Medicine 2002)- William C. Campbell (Nobel Prize Medicine 2015)- Mario R. Capecchi (Nobel Prize Medicine 2007)- Peter C. Doherty (Nobel Prize Medicine 1996)- Andrew Z. Fire (Nobel Prize Medicine 2006)- Edmond H. Fischer (Nobel Prize Medicine 1992)- Paul Greengard (Nobel Prize Medicine 2000)- Carol W. Greider (Nobel Prize Medicine 2009)- Roger Guillemin (Nobel Prize Medicine 1977)- Sir John B. Gurdon (Nobel Prize Medicine 2012)- Jeffrey Connor Hall (Nobel Prize Medicine 2017)- Leland H. Hartwell (Nobel Prize Medicine 2001)- Harald zur Hausen (Nobel Prize Medicine 2008)- Jules A. Hoffmann (Nobel Prize Medicine 2011)- H. Robert Horvitz (Nobel Prize Medicine 2002)- Michael Houghton (Nobel Prize Medicine 2020)- Tim Hunt (Nobel Prize Medicine 2001)- Louis J. Ignarro (Nobel Prize Medicine 1998)- William G. Kaelin Jr. (Nobel Prize Medicine 2019)- Eric R. Kandel (Nobel Prize Medicine 2000)- Craig C. Mello (Nobel Prize Medicine 2006)- Edvard Moser (Nobel Prize Medicine 2014)- May-Britt Moser (Nobel Prize Medicine 2014)- Ferid Murad (Nobel Prize Medicine 1998)- Erwin Neher (Nobel Prize Medicine 1991)- Sir Paul M. Nurse (Nobel Prize Medicine 2001)- Yoshinori Ohsumi (Nobel Prize Medicine 2016)- Stanley B. Prusiner (Nobel Prize Medicine 1997)- Charles M. Rice (Nobel Prize Medicine 2020)- Sir Richard J. Roberts (Nobel Prize Medicine 1993)- Randy W. Schekman (Nobel Prize Medicine 2013)- Gregg L. Semenza (Nobel Prize Medicine 2019)- Phillip A. Sharp (Nobel Prize Medicine 1993)- Hamilton O. Smith (Nobel Prize Medicine 1978)- John E. Sulston (Nobel Prize Medicine 2002)- Jack W. Szostak (Nobel Prize Medicine 2009)- Harold E. Varmus (Nobel Prize Medicine 1989)- J. Robin Warren (Nobel Prize Medicine 2005)- Eric F. Wieschaus (Nobel Prize Medicine 1995)- Torsten N. Wiesel (Nobel Prize Medicine 1981)- Michael W. Young (Nobel Prize Medicine 2017)- Mairead Corrigan-Maguire (Nobel Prize Peace 1976)- Shirin Ebadi (Nobel Prize Peace 2003)- Leymah Roberta Gbowee (Nobel Prize Peace 2011)- Tawakkol Karman (Nobel Prize Peace 2011)- F.W. de Klerk (Nobel Prize Peace 1993)- Jose Ramos-Horta (Nobel Prize Peace 1996)- Jody Williams (Nobel Prize Peace 1997)- Hiroshi Amano (Nobel Prize Physics 2014)- Barry Clark Barish (Nobel Prize Physics 2017)- J. Georg Bednorz (Nobel Prize Physics 1987)- Steven Chu (Nobel Prize Physics 1997)- Claude Cohen-Tannoudji (Nobel Prize Physics 1997)- Jerome I. Friedman (Nobel Prize Physics 1990)- Andre Geim (Nobel Prize Physics 2010)- Sheldon Glashow (Nobel Prize Physics 1979)- David J. Gross (Nobel Prize Physics 2004)- John L. Hall (Nobel Prize Physics 2005)- Serge Haroche (Nobel Prize Physics 2012)- Brian D. Josephson (Nobel Prize Physics 1973)- Takaaki Kajita (Nobel Prize Physics 2015)- Wolfgang Ketterle (Nobel Prize Physics 2001)- Klaus von Klitzing (Nobel Prize Physics 1985)- J. Michael Kosterlitz (Nobel Prize Physics 2016)- Anthony J. Leggett (Nobel Prize Physics 2003)- John C. Mather (Nobel Prize Physics 2006)- Michel Mayor (Nobel Prize Physics 2019)- Gerard Mourou (Nobel Prize Physics 2018)- Konstantin Novoselov (Nobel Prize Physics 2010)- Douglas D. Osheroff (Nobel Prize Physics 1996)- James Peebles (Nobel Prize Physics 2019)- Arno Penzias (Nobel Prize Physics 1978)- William D. Phillips (Nobel Prize Physics 1997)- H. David Politzer (Nobel Prize Physics 2004)- Horst L. Stormer (Nobel Prize Physics 1998)- Donna Strickland (Nobel Prize Physics 2018)- Joseph H. Taylor Jr. (Nobel Prize Physics 1993)- Kip Stephen Thorne (Nobel Prize Physics 2017)- Steve Weinberg (Nobel Prize Physics 1979)- Rainer Weiss (Nobel Prize Physics 2017)- Carl E. Wieman (Nobel Prize Physics 2001)- Frank Wilczek (Nobel Prize Physics 2004)- Robert Woodrow Wilson (Nobel Prize Physics 1978)- David J. Wineland (Nobel Prize Physics 2012)