Britain’s Queen Elizabeth presented chemical engineer Dr Robert Langer with a £1 million prize at Buckingham Palace on Monday (26.10.15).
The monarch greeted Dr Langer in the throne room at the palace, where he was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering for his "revolutionary advances and leadership in engineering at the interface with chemistry and medicine".
The queen was joined by her husband the Duke of Edinburgh, her daughter and son, the Princess Royal and the Duke of York and her granddaughter Princess Eugenie
Dr Langer’s work has been the basis for long-lasting treatments for brain cancer, prostate cancer, endometriosis, schizophrenia, diabetes and cardiovascular stents. His research is said to have improved more than two billion lives.
The Queen Elizabeth Prize committee said that "hundreds of millions of people a year across the world benefit from the technologies that rest on the work of Robert Langer".
The Royal Society’s recently-appointed professor for public engagement in science, Brian Cox, added: "What I found unique about this is it’s something that has demonstrably already changed people’s lives, and will change billions more lives in the future. There was a whole new area of research opened up by Bob Langer’s work.
"But also what struck me personally was the list, many tens if not hundreds of engineers who supported this nomination, who said I’m in engineering because I was given inspirational teaching by Robert Langer."
Queen Elizabeth awards 1m prize
