The new Chemistry World Entrepreneur of the Year, Professor Hagan Bayley of Oxford Nanopore Technologies, was held up as an example to the Chancellor Alistair Darling on BBC Radio 4 recently. 

The Chancellor said in his Budget speech on Wednesday 29 April that it was critical to support innovation and allow future hi-tech industry to pull Britain from recession. 

Quentin Cooper, host of Material World, said on the programme: "Alistair Darling announced the creation of a £750m strategic investment fund to encourage innovation and nurture emerging technologies. "The idea being that, given the right new ideas and the right support, and they could more than repay the initial investment. "If the Chancellor wanted an example of that process in action he needs look no further than tonight's Entrepreneur of the Year award from the Royal Society of Chemistry." 

Professor Bayley founded Oxford Nanopore Technologies in 2005 to develop nanopore technology for DNA analysis. Bayley was honoured recently at the Royal Society of Chemistry headquarters at Burlington House, London, with other winners of the RSC Industry and Technology Forum Awards. 

Professor Bayley has been associated with the RSC for a number of years: he has been a member of the Molecular BioSystems Editorial Board since launch of the journal in 2005 and is the Chair of the RSC's Chemistry Biology Interface Forum.