Professor Shankar Balasubramanian has been awarded the Heatley medal for 2014 by the Biochemical Society.
The prize has been awarded to Shankar for his role in developing novel high throughput sequence methodologies that are having a profound impact on medical and environmental sciences.
The Heatley Medal and Prize is awarded for exceptional work that makes biochemistry widely accessible and usable, or for achievements that enable widespread progress and understanding.
The recipient of the Heatley Prize receives the medal and the prize lecture, which is given at a Biochemical Society conference, and which is published in Biochemical Society Transactions.
History: Dr Norman Heatley is known as the scientist who overcame wartime shortages to make the production of penicillin possible and his role in paving the way for mass production is well documented in his obituaries in 2004. Dr Heatley worked closely with the Society's Industrial Biochemistry and Biotechnology Group (IBBG) and the Group originally sought nominations for the award.