Egyptian Noble Laureate Ahmed Zewail passed away on Tuesday in the US at the age of 70, his media spokesman Sherif Fouad told Egyptian State TV.

According to Fouad, it has not been determined yet whether Zewail died of his cancer or another disease.

The spokesman added that procedures are currently undergoing to transfer Zewail's body from the United States to Egypt for burial.

In June 2013, Zewail announced he was suffering from a cancerous tumor in the spinal cord, adding later on that he was able to overcome the "critical state" of the disease.

Born on 26 February, 1946, Zewail got his bachelors and masters degrees from Alexandria University, before moving to the US to study and receive his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

He won the Nobel prize in chemistry in 1999 after demonstrating that it was possible with rapid laser technique to see how atoms in a molecule move during a chemical reaction down to tens of femtoseconds(fs).

His experiments led to the birth of the research field referred to as femtochemistry, therefore the late scientist was named "The Father of Femtochemistry".

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