MIT prof wins $1.2M technology prize

By Globe Staff

An MIT professor has won the world's largest prize for technology innovation, the $1.2 million Millennium Technology Prize, the university announced today.

Robert Langer, who has pioneered new ways to administer drugs to cancer patients, received the award today from Tarja Halonen, president of Finland, at a ceremony in Helsinki.

"It's such a great honor -- particularly given the quality of people who have won it before as well as the quality of the innovations and people considered this year," Langer said in a statement.

The award is given every other year by Technology Academy Finland.

Langer also received the highest US honor for math and science, a Medal of Science, last year.

In the 1970s, chemical engineer Langer teamed with oncologist Judah Folkman at Children's Hospital Boston to develop methods that would allow large proteins to enter membranes in a highly controlled manner to combat angiogenesis, the process by which tumors recruit blood vessels that sustain them.

The treatment helped fight cancer by making it more difficult for tumors to spread to other organs.

It's the third time the prize has been awarded. One of the two previous winners was also an MIT researcher. Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web, won the honor in 2004.

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