Michael Milken - who symbolized the greed of Wall Street a decade ago - today is being praised as a visionary philanthropist, according to a profile published by the Associated Press.

During the 1970s and '80s, Milken pioneered trading in securities known as junk bonds, making the firm Drexel Burnham Lambert the most powerful brokerage on Wall Street. Although junk bonds made Milken enormously wealthy, he went to prison for two years in 1990 after pleading guilty to securities fraud.

Now Milken concentrates his energies, and his money, on research toward cancer cures and think tanks involving economics and education.

"He will be remembered for a lot of things. He may be remembered as the man who cured cancer," says Robert Sobel, a business historian and professor at Hofstra University.

Here are some of Milken's efforts:

• The Association for the Cure of Cancer of the Prostate has awarded more than $75 million, much of it Milken family money.
• The Milken Family Foundation works to help minority and inner-city communities. It has worked to expand the use of computers in classrooms and gives awards to teachers.
• The Milken Institute is a Santa Monica, Calif., economics think tank that has gained influence among policymaking circles through its seminars.