The Breakthrough Prize and sponsors Sergey Brin, Pony Ma, Yuri and Julia Milner, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, and Anne Wojcicki recognize disruptive advances in the fields of fundamental physics, mathematics, and the life sciences. Each recipient is awarded $3 million—the largest individual monetary prize in science.
Since its inception in 2012, the Breakthrough Prize has awarded almost $200 million to honor groundbreaking work. Prize co-founder Anne Wojcicki said, “Every year I am inspired by the Breakthrough Prize laureates and the deep insights that are made possible by pure curiosity-driven research. This year is no exception.”
Five 2018 Breakthrough Prizes in the life sciences were presented to:
- Joanne Chory, Salk Institute for Biological Studies and Howard Hughes Medical Institute (LaJolla, CA), for discovering how photosynthesis stimulates shoot and leaf growth.
- Don W. Cleveland, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at the University of California, San Diego, for elucidating the molecular pathogenesis of a type of inherited ALS, including the role of glia in neurodegeneration, and for devising an antisense oligonucleotide therapy of ALS and Huntington’s disease in animals.
- Kazutoshi Mori of Kyoto University, Japan, for elucidating the unfolded protein response of cells.
- Peter Walter of the University of California, San Francisco, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, for elucidating the unfolded protein response of cells.
- Kim Nasmyth, University of Oxford (U.K.), for elucidating the process of separation of duplicated chromosomes during cell division.
Robert L. Stevenson, Ph.D., is Editor Emeritus, American Laboratory/Labcompare; e-mail: [email protected]
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