The Millennium Technology Prize

Sir Shankar Balasubramanian, born 30 September 1966, is an Indian-born British chemist working at the University of Cambridge. He is recognised for his contributions in the field of nucleic acids, in particular next generation sequencing, DNA epigenetics and G-quadruplex DNA. He is scientific founder of Solexa, Biomodal (formally Cambridge Epigenetix) and Genome Therapeutics.

Balasubramanian was educated at the University of Cambridge where he was awarded a BA (Hons) in Natural Science in 1988 and a PhD in 1991.  He was then a SERC/NATO Research Fellow at Pennsylvania State University. Balasubramanian is Herchel Smith Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and Senior Group Leader at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute. He is an elected member of the Academy of Medical Sciences (2011), the Royal Society (2012), EMBO (2012), Academia Europea (2023) and an International member of the National Academy of Sciences (2023).  He was knighted in 2017 and his awards include the Millennium Technology Prize (2020), Breakthrough Prize (2022), Novo Nordisk Prize (2024) and the Canada Gairdner International Prize (2024).

Sir David Klenerman, born 1959, is a British biophysical chemist and a professor of biophysical chemistry at the University of Cambridge. He is best known for co-inventing  next-generation sequencing of DNA and the application of single molecule fluorescence to study protein aggregation and the molecular basis of the immune response.

He earned his PhD degree in chemistry in 1986 as a postgraduate student of Churchill College, Cambridge. After his doctorate, Klenerman went to Stanford University as a Fulbright scholar to work on high-overtone chemistry. In  1994, he joined the University of Cambridge, as a faculty member of the Department of Chemistry. Klenerman is a Fellow of the Royal Society, Academy of Medical Science  and Academia Europaea and  was   knighted in 2018.( He was awarded the 2020 Millennium Technology Prize and 2024 Novo Nordisk prize  jointly with Shankar Balasubramanian and the 2022 Breakthrough Prize for Life Sciences and 2024 Canada Gairdner International award jointly with Shankar Balasubramanian and Pascal Mayer for next generation DNA sequencing).

Michael Grätzel, born 11 May 1944, in Dorfchemnitz, Germany, is a professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne where he directs the Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces. He pioneered research on energy and electron transfer reactions in mesoscopic-materials and their optoelectronic applications.

In 1971 he earned the Doctor of Philosophy in natural science at the Technical University of Berlin. He worked as postdoctoral research fellow, lecturer, visiting professor at the Hahn-Meitner Institute, Free University of Berlin, University of California at Berkeley, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan, University of Notre Dame and National University of Singapore and other educational and research centers. Graetzel is the holder of 15 honorary doctorates in Universities of Africa, Asia and Europe: Denmark, Portugal, Holland, China, Sweden, Singapore and other countries. He is the laureate of tens of prestigious scientific and engineering prizes including the Balzan Prize, Global Energy Prize, Faraday Medal , Gutenberg Prize, Albert Einstein Prize and BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Awards in Basic Science. He is an elected member of several learned societies, including the German Academy of Science (Leopoldina), the Royal Society (UK), Chinese Academy of Science, Royal Spanish Academy of Engineering, the Swiss Academy for Technical Sciences and the European Academy of Science. He is also Elected Honorary Member of the Société Vaudoise de Sciences Naturelles.