Two British chemists who developed a super-fast DNA sequencing technique that paved the way for revolutionary healthcare advances were on Tuesday awarded Finland's version of the Nobel science prizes. Cambridge University professors Shankar Balasubramanian and David Klenerman took home the 1 million euro ($1.22 million) Millennium Technology Prize for their work over 27 years creating ever faster and cheaper ways to sequence the human genome. The Finnish Millennium Technology Prize, founded in 2004, singles out innovations that have practical applications and which "enhance the quality of people's lives." It aims to be a technology equivalent of the Nobel science prizes, which have been criticised by some for focusing too much on traditional, decades-old scientific research. This year's Millennium Technology Prize was postponed from 2020 due to the pandemic.

Source: Hindustan Times May 18, 2021 15:19 UTC