Indian-Origin Chemist Shankar Balasubramanian and David Klenerman Wins 2020 Millennium Technology Prize

Indian-Origin Chemist Shankar Balasubramanian and David Klenerman Wins 2020 Millennium Technology Prize

• British-Indian Chemist Shankar Balasubramanian along with his colleague David Klenerman from the Cambridge University have been declared the winners of the 2020 Millennium Technology Prize.
• The duo have been recognised for development of ever faster and cheaper ways of revolutionary sequencing techniques, which means DNA can now be read in super-fast times.
• The Next-Generation DNA Sequencing technology (NGS) developed by the duo will help in fighting killer diseases such as Covid-19 or cancer, better understand crop diseases and enhance food production.
• The biennial prize, worth Euro 1 million, is given the Technology Academy Finland. The prize is considered as Finland’s version of the Nobel Science Prizes.