Yuri Milner to dole out $3 million to innovators (via Yuri Milner)
Compared to athletes, actors and other celebrities, scientists do not get the recognition they deserve. They rarely get any fame so it is no wonder boys and girls would rather be athletes and entertainers rather than innovative scientists. A new award is being handed out to scientists who take chances, think big and have influenced daily lives with their work and research. The Breakthrough award is also aimed at shining a much brighter spotlight on those scientists whose stories and endeavors could inspire the next generation of scientists.
The prize was started last July, when its founder Yuri Milner, billionaire Russian investor, announced he would award $3 million to scientists in cutting edge theoretical physics. Nine winners each won the prize then and this year the Breakthrough award is expanding to recognize those involved in the fields of medicine and biology. This new Life Sciences award will be received by 11 hardworking innovative, scientists that have made remarkable leaps and expanded upon the human wealth of knowledge in the fields of neurology, gene therapy, cancer metabolism, stem cells and polymorphisms in DNA.
The award is funded or sponsored by Yuri himself, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, Google’s Sergey Brin and his wife and founder of the genetics testing company 23andME, Anne Wojcicki. This group picked the first group of winners last year with the help of Apple Chairman Arthur D. Levinson and a small panel of colleagues. However, from now on, the panel that will chose the next finalist will be composed of all previous winners. This way, Yuri says, the scientists themselves will hold the bar high and a transparent process will select winners fairly. Yuri does not believe crony politics will by an issue.
The Breakthrough group wants to recruit more sponsors so that more awards can be given. As of now, 5 awards will be given out annually. Any number of scientists can share in the $3 million award. In addition, there is no age requirement for winners or limit on how many awards anyone can win. Any individual can nominate anyone else to be considered for a Breakthrough Prize on the group’s website.
The award is meant so the scientists can do whatever they please. It is not given to any institution or for any specific purpose. Most importantly, the Breakthrough panel wants to give these scientists the attention in society they deserve. On the other side, the sponsors get to keep an eye on important breakthroughs and possible investment opportunities.
This year’s winners have already been chosen. Their projects were mostly focused on causes and treatments for cancer, stem cell research and studies of the human genome. Here they are:
- Cornelia I. Bargmann
Torsten N. Wiesel Professor and Head of the Lulu and Anthony Wang Laboratory of Neural Circuits and Behavior at the Rockefeller University. Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.
For the genetics of neural circuits and behavior, and synaptic guidepost molecules.
- David Botstein
Director of the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics and the Anthony B. Evnin Professor of Genomics at Princeton University.
For linkage mapping of Mendelian disease in humans using DNA polymorphisms.
- Lewis C. Cantley
Margaret and Herman Sokol Professor and Director of the Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medical College and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.
For the discovery of PI 3-Kinase and its role in cancer metabolism.
- Hans Clevers
Professor of Molecular Genetics at Hubrecht Institute. President of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
For describing the role of Wnt signaling in tissue stem cells and cancer.
- Titia de Lange
Leon Hess Professor, Head of the Laboratory of Cell Biology and Genetics, and Director of the Anderson Center for Cancer Research at the Rockefeller University.
For research on telomeres, illuminating how they protect chromosome ends and their role in genome instability in cancer.
- Napoleone Ferrara
Distinguished Professor of Pathology and Senior Deputy Director for Basic Sciences at Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego.
For discoveries in the mechanisms of angiogenesis that led to therapies for cancer and eye diseases.
- Eric S. Lander
President and Founding Director of the Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. Professor of Biology at MIT. Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School.
For the discovery of general principles for identifying human disease genes, and enabling their application to medicine through the creation and analysis of genetic, physical and sequence maps of the human genome.
- Charles L. Sawyers
Chair, Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.
For cancer genes and targeted therapy.
- Bert Vogelstein
Director of the Ludwig Center and Clayton Professor of Oncology and Pathology at the Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.
For cancer genomics and tumor suppressor genes.
- Robert A. Weinberg
Daniel K. Ludwig Professor for Cancer Research at MIT and Director of the MIT/Ludwig Center for Molecular Oncology. Member, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.
For characterization of human cancer genes.
- Shinya Yamanaka
Director of Center for iPS Cell Research and Application, Kyoto University. Senior Investigator, Gladstone Institutes, San Francisco.
For induced pluripotent stem cells.
Arthur Levinson announced the new awards in San Francisco in late February at UCSF’s Mission Bay campus. They will be handed out March 20, in Geneva. Hopefully our societal future will be filled with scientist that equal in stature and recognition to the celebs that currently fill our decadent culture.
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