Mathias Uhlén receives Akzo Nobel Science Award
The winner of this year's Akzo Nobel Science Award has been announced. The SEK 500,000 (approx. EUR 57,000) prize has been awarded to Professor Mathias Uhlén of the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden. He will receive the Award on March 15 from Akzo Nobel CEO Hans Wijers.
Presented annually in recognition of groundbreaking interdisciplinary research founded on engineering science, Professor Uhlén was chosen to receive the 2005 honor for his unique research in the field biotechnology and his ability to bridge research and industry.
Co-founder of six biotech companies (Pyrosequencing (now Biotage), Affibody, Magnetic Biosolutions, Creative Peptides, SweTree Genomics and Visual Bioinformatics), Professor Uhlén is the creator of a KTH project to map human proteins. Of the total set of around 22,000 proteins, around five to ten are mapped each day and Professor Uhlén's project is considered to be the biggest in the world into protein research. Given that 98% of all drugs are created to act on proteins in the body, the project is also one of the most important for the future development of new drugs.
"All medical researchers will benefit from the knowledge we are creating today," explained Professor Uhlén. "Our database will be a cornerstone in the development of new drugs."
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