Committee
The Novo Nordisk Foundation Prize for Biotechnology Committee
The Committee
The Novo Nordisk Foundation Prize for Biotechnology Committee is responsible for assessing the nominations and producing a shortlist of candidates following comprehensive analyses. The shortlisted candidates are then assessed by international experts before the Committee selects the final recipient.
Nominations are welcome from individual researchers and research institutions including academic and industrial institutions, as well as from research funding agencies.
The Committee comprises five to eight members, including a Chair. The members and Chair are appointed by the Board of the Novo Nordisk Foundation in accordance with the general rules covering the Foundation’s committees.
The current members of the Novo Nordisk Foundation Prize for Biotechnology Committee are listed below.
Chair
Detlef Weigel
Professor, Executive Director, Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Germany Has been a member since 2021 and Chair since 2023
Member
Dame Carol Robinson
Director of the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery, Dr Lee's Professor of Physical Chemistry, University of Oxford, UK Has been a member since 2021
Member
Georg Gübitz
Professor, Head Institute of Environmental Biotechnology, BOKU University, Vienna Has been a member since 2025
Member
Maija Tenkanen
Professor, Department of Food and Nutrition, University of Helsinki, Finland Member since 2022
Member
Jack Pronk
Professor, Industrial Microbiology, TU Delft, The Netherlands Has been a member since 2025
Member
Ewan Birney
Interim Director General EMBL-EBI (UK) and honorary professor of bioinformatics at the University of Cambridge, UK Has been a member since 2026
Member
Lisbeth Olsson
Professor, Industrial Biotechnology, Chalmers University of Technology and Secretary General for Research Infrastructure at the Swedish Research Council, Sweden Has been a member since 2026
Member
Claus Felby
Vice President, Agri-Food, Novo Nordisk Foundation Has been a member since 2020
Member
Christopher Bettinger
Vice President, Biotechnology, Novo Nordisk Foundation Has been a member since 2026