Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry issued directives to the Egyptian Embassy in Washington and consulate in Los Angeles to offer all possible help for the return of the body of prominent Egyptian scientist and Nobel laureate Ahmed Zewail, who passed away on Tuesday in the US, back home.

Zewail died while visiting his daughter in San Francisco, California, and his body was immediately moved to the Islamic center in Los Angeles, where it is being prepared for its return and burial in Egypt, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid said.

Egyptian Consul Lamiaa Mekhemar will be present at the Islamic center in Los Angeles until the body is airlifted back home as soon as possible, the spokesman said.

Foreign Minister Shoukry received the news of Zewail’s death with deep sadness, Abu Zeid said, noting that the Egyptian people and the entire humanity have lost a great scientific and national personality that will always be proudly remembered in history.

Zewail died in the US on Tuesday at the age of 70.

In June 2013, Zewail announced he was suffering from a cancerous tumor in the spinal cord but later he announced 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).