Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla in partnership with Google's Sergey Brin, his wife, Anne Wojcicki (genomics company 23andme), Art Levinson from Apple Inc., and technology investor Yuri Milner created the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Foundation three days ago. This Foundation rewards medical breakthroughs and gave out eleven awards, each with an individual reward of $3 million. "Young people will hopefully get the message that not only the careers in sports or entertainment can get a public recognition," Milner said.
The founders believe that our society needs more heroes who are scientists, researchers and engineers. They have decided to celebrate and reward those who expand our understanding of humanity and work to improve people's lives.
The prizes were awarded to the following scientist on the 20th of February, 2013:
1. For the genetics of neural circuits and behavior, and synaptic guidepost molecules - Cornelia I. Bargmann , Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.
2. For linkage mapping of Mendelian disease in humans using DNA polymorphisms - David Botstein, Director of the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics and Professor of Genomics at Princeton University.
3. For the discovery of PI 3-Kinase and its role in cancer metabolism - Lewis C. Cantley
Professor and Director of the Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medical College and New York-Presbyterian Hospital.
4. For describing the role of Wnt signaling in tissue stem cells and cancer - Hans Clevers
Professor of Molecular Genetics at Hubrecht Institute.
5. For research on telomeres, illuminating how they protect chromosome ends and their role in genome instability in 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.
6. For discoveries in the mechanisms of angiogenesis that led to therapies for cancer and eye diseases - Napoleone Ferrara, distinguished Professor of Pathology and Senior Deputy Director for Basic Sciences at Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego.
7. 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 - 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.
8. For cancer genes and targeted therapy - Charles L. Sawyers, Chair of the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.
9. For cancer genomics and tumor suppressor genes - 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.
10. For characterization of human cancer genes - Robert A. Weinberg
Professor and director the MIT/Ludwig Center for Molecular Oncology.
11. For induced pluripotent stem cells - Shinya Yamanaka, Director of Center for iPS Cell Research and Application, Kyoto University. Senior Investigator, Gladstone Institutes, San Francisco.
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