On last October, Jens Nielsen was awarded the prestigious ‘Eni Award’ by the Italian oil company Eni. Each year, Eni elects the best research projects related to energy efficiency, sustainability and environmental protection. This year, Jens Nielsen’s research on yeast metabolic engineering for the production of renewable fuels and chemicals was awarded the “Energy Frontiers” prize for exploration of new frontiers in energy technology. The technology has been recognized as “a significant contribution to the development of future energy solutions and a more sustainable society”.
Eni Awards 2017: Energy Frontiers – Using Yeast to Produce Biofuels
On the same month, Prof. Nielsen also received the Gold Medal from the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. The medal was attributed for his innovative research in the field of systems biology and given in hand by Prince Carl Philip of Sweden.
In addition, Dr. Nielsen received the 2017 Eric and Sheila Samson Prime Minister’s Prize for Innovation in Alternative Fuels for Transportation. This prize is considered the world’s largest monetary prize awarded in the field of alternative fuels and it is given yearly to scientists who have made critical advancements in the field.