Millennium Technology Prize awarded to Robert Langer for intelligent drug delivery and tissue regeneration

- EUR 800,000 award given for third time

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The Millennium Prize Foundation handed out its 2008 Millennium Technology Prize to professor Robert Langer for developing innovative biomaterials for controlled drug release and tissue regeneration that have saved human lives and improved the lives of millions of patients.
      President Tarja Halonen handed Prof. Langer the prize of EUR 800,000 and the Peak trophy at the Grand Award Ceremony held in Helsinki's Finlandia Hall on Wednesday.
     
Professor Langer’s innovations have had a significant impact on fighting cancer, heart disease, and numerous other ailments.
      His work has also brought about significant advances in tissue engineering, including synthetic replacement for biological tissues such as artificial skin. Over 100 million people a year are already using advanced drug delivery systems and this number is rising rapidly. In the future, tissue engineering may revolutionize medical treatment that could affect millions of other individuals.
     
"Tissue engineering holds the promise of creating virtually any new tissue or organ," said Professor Langer.
      Langer, 59, works as a professor and the head of the world’s largest biomedical engineering laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the USA.
     
The other 2008 laureates were each awarded prizes of EUR 115,000 at the Award Ceremony.
      The DNA fingerprinting technique developed by Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys has revolutionized the field of forensic science and methods of defining family relationships. Dr. Andrew Viterbi’s innovation is the Viterbi algorithm, used to avoid errors in wireless communications systems and devices such as mobile phones.
      The fourth award-winning innovation, the erbium-doped fibre amplifier (EDFA) invented by Professor Emmanuel Desurvire, Dr. Randy Giles and Professor David Payne, has vastly increased the transmission capacity of the global optical fibre networks that carry telephone and Internet communications signals.
     
The very first Millennium Technology Prize was given in 2004 to Tim Berners-Lee for his pioneering work as the developer of the World Wide Web.
      In 2006, the prize was collected by Japanese professor Shuji Nakamura, the inventor of LED light sources.
      The Millennium Technology Prize is awarded every second year to inspire and recognize technological innovations that have a favourable impact on quality of life and wellbeing or on sustainable development.
     
The Millennium Prize Foundation, (formerly the Finnish Technology Award Foundation), is an independent fund established in 2002 by Finnish industry and the Finnish state in partnership.
     


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Creator of DNA fingerprinting joins shortlist for Millennium Technology Prize (9.4.2008)
  Nakamura collects Millennium Technology Prize (11.9.2006)
  Millennium Technology Prize awarded to Tim Berners-Lee (16.6.2004)

Links:
  Millennium Technology Prize
  Millennium Technology Prize: Press release 11.6.2008
  Millennium Technology Prize (Wikipedia)

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