Princess of Asturias Award

Princess of Asturias Award for pioneers of the DNA 'great acceleration'

David Klenerman, Shankar Balasubramanian, and Pascal Mayer invented a breakthrough technology that enables large-scale genome sequencing that is faster, more accurate, and cheaper

Pascal Mayer, Shankar Balasubramanian and David Klenerman. (JC Mayer / Dela Sharifi (Apollo PR))

Judith de Jorge

13/05/2026 a las 16:38h.

British chemists David Klenerman and Shankar Balasubramanian of the University of Cambridge, alongside French biophysicist Pascal Mayer of Alphanosos, were honoured this Wednesday with the ... 2026 Princesa de Asturias Award for Scientific and Technical Research.

The trio was recognised for inventing a new technology that allows for large-scale DNA reading in a faster, more precise, and more affordable manner.

This Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS), developed by the company Solexa-Illumina, has fundamentally improved our understanding of life, providing immense benefits to humanity. For instance, it allowed for the near-immediate identification of the virus causing Covid-19 and the creation of vaccines at an unprecedented speed.

The NGS technology was initially developed by Solexa, founded by Balasubramanian (born Chennai, India, 1966) and Klenerman (born UK, 1959), and was acquired by Illumina in 2007. A key component was the DNA surface amplification method developed by Mayer (born Moselle, France, 1963).

Based on massive parallel sequencing, the method reads billions of genes simultaneously: it breaks the genome into small fragments or clusters, creates thousands of copies, and groups them into "islands." Once gathered, they can be read simultaneously using fluorescence techniques. It is now the most widely used genetic sequencing method in the world, revolutionising research in cell biology, biomedicine, forensics, and ecology.

As noted by the jury, chaired by Pedro Miguel Echenique, the magnitude of this shift is illustrated by a one-million-fold improvement in speed and cost compared to the first human genome sequencing.

In the year 2000, sequencing a human genome took over 10 years and cost more than $1 billion. Today, a genome can be sequenced in a single day for less than $1,000.

The Princess of Asturias in the category of Scientific and Technical Research honours research, discovery or invention in fields such as astronomy and astrophysics, medical and technological sciences, Earth and space sciences, life sciences, physics, mathematics and chemistry, as well as related disciplines and techniques.

Each Princess of Asturias Award is endowed with a sculpture by Joan Miró, a diploma, an insignia and a cash prize of 50,000 euros.