Indian-Origin Cambridge Professor Among 2020 Millennium Technology Prize Awardees

The Millennium Technology Prize worth Euro 1 million is awarded by Technology Academy Finland (TAF) at two-year intervals.

Professors David Klenerman and Shankar Balasubramanian (Image Source: millenniumprize.org)

New Delhi: Chemists Shankar Balasubramanian and David Klenerman from the Cambridge University were declared the winners of the 2020 Millennium Technology Prize on Tuesday.

It is a prestigious global science and technology prize award which they won for their development of revolutionary sequencing techniques which means DNA can now be read in super-fast times. 

"This is the first time we've received an international prize that recognises our contribution to developing the technology - but it's not just for us, it's for the whole team that played a key role in the development of the technology and for all those that have inspired us on our journey," the winning scientists said in a joint statement.

Balasubramanian, an India-born British professor of medicinal chemistry, and Klenerman, a British biophysical chemist, co-invented the Solexa-Illumina Next Generation DNA Sequencing (NGS), technology enabling fast, accurate, low-cost and large-scale genome sequencing - the process of determining the complete DNA sequence of an organism''s make-up, which is proving crucial in humanity's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The duo went on to co-found the company Solexa to make the technology more broadly available to the world.

In a virtual ceremony, President of the Republic of Finland Sauli Niinisto, who is the Patron of the prize, presented the award to the scientists on Tuesday. The 2020 announcement was delayed because of the Covid-19 panedemic.

The Millennium Technology Prize worth Euro 1 million is awarded by Technology Academy Finland (TAF) at two-year intervals. It began in 2004 Tim Berners-Lee was first to be honoured for his discovery of the World Wide Web.

Professor Marja Makarow, Chair of Technology Academy Finland said, "Collaboration is an essential part of ensuring positive change for the future. Next Generation Sequencing is the perfect example of what can be achieved through teamwork and individuals from different scientific backgrounds coming together to solve a problem."

"The technology pioneered by Professor Balasubramanian and Professor Klenerman has also played a key role in helping discover the coronavirus''s sequence, which in turn enabled the creation of the vaccines - itself a triumph for cross-border collaboration - and helped identify new variants of COVID-19," Makarow said.

Though the International Selection Committee pointed out that it had made its decision in February 2020, before the global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

(With agency inputs)