MIT Institute Professor Robert S. Langer received the 2008 Millennium Technology Prize for his work in developing new biomaterials for controlled drug release and tissue regeneration. By helping to fight illnesses like cancer and heart disease, the citation read, Langer’s innovations “have a positive impact on … quality of life,” a major criterion for the reward.

The biennial prize and a monetary award of 800,000 euros (about $1.2 million) were presented to Langer on June 11 in Helsinki. “It’s certainly the biggest and most prestigious award I’ve won, and I’m very flattered to have won it,” Langer said.
Keep Reading
Most Popular
The inside story of how ChatGPT was built from the people who made it
Exclusive conversations that take us behind the scenes of a cultural phenomenon.
How Rust went from a side project to the world’s most-loved programming language
For decades, coders wrote critical systems in C and C++. Now they turn to Rust.
Design thinking was supposed to fix the world. Where did it go wrong?
An approach that promised to democratize design may have done the opposite.
Sam Altman invested $180 million into a company trying to delay death
Can anti-aging breakthroughs add 10 healthy years to the human life span? The CEO of OpenAI is paying to find out.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.