Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences

Year Portrait Laureate
(birth/death) Country Rationale Affiliation 2013^[1] Cornelia Bargmann
(b. 1961)  United States “for the genetics of neural circuits and behavior, and synaptic guidepost molecules.” Rockefeller University David Botstein
(b. 1942)  Switzerland
 United States “for linkage mapping of Mendelian disease in humans using DNA polymorphisms.” Princeton University Lewis C. Cantley
(b. 1949)  United States “for the discovery of PI 3-Kinase and its role in cancer metabolism.” Harvard Medical School
Weill Cornell Medical College Hans Clevers
(b. 1957)  Netherlands “for describing the role of Wnt signaling in tissue stem cells and cancer.” Hubrecht Institute Titia de Lange
(b. 1955)  Netherlands
 United States “for research on telomeres, illuminating how they protect chromosome ends and their role in genome instability in cancer.” Rockefeller University Napoleone Ferrara
(b. 1956)  Italy
 United States “for discoveries in the mechanisms of angiogenesis that led to therapies for cancer and eye diseases.” University of California, San Diego Eric S. Lander
(b. 1957)  United States “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.” Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Broad Institute Charles L. Sawyers
(b. 1959)  United States “for cancer genes and targeted therapy.” Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Robert A. Weinberg
(b. 1942)  United States “for characterization of human cancer genes.” Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Whitehead Institute Shinya Yamanaka
(b. 1962)  Japan “for induced pluripotent stem cells.” Kyoto University
J. David Gladstone Institutes
University of California, San Francisco Bert Vogelstein
(b. 1949)  United States “for cancer genomics and tumor suppressor genes.” Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Johns Hopkins University 2014^[3] James P. Allison
(b. 1948)  United States “for the discovery of T cell checkpoint blockade as effective cancer therapy.” M. D. Anderson Cancer Center Mahlon DeLong
(b. 1938)  United States “for defining the interlocking circuits in the brain that malfunction in Parkinson’s disease – this scientific foundation underlies the circuit-based treatment of Parkinson’s disease by deep brain stimulation.” Emory University Michael N. Hall
(b. 1953)  Switzerland
 United States “for the discovery of Target of Rapamycin (TOR) and its role in cell growth control.” Biozentrum University of Basel Robert Langer
(b. 1948)  United States “for discoveries leading to the development of controlled drug-release systems and new biomaterials.” Massachusetts Institute of Technology Richard P. Lifton
(b. 1953)  United States “for the discovery of genes and biochemical mechanisms that cause hypertension.” Yale University School of Medicine Alexander Varshavsky
(b. 1946)  Russia
 United States “for discovering critical molecular determinants and biological functions of intracellular protein degradation.” Caltech 2015^[4] Alim-Louis Benabid
(b. 1942)  France “for the discovery and pioneering work on the development of high-frequency deep brain stimulation (DBS), which has revolutionized the treatment of Parkinson’s disease.” Joseph Fourier University C. David Allis
(b. 1951)  United States “for the discovery of covalent modifications of histone proteins and their critical roles in the regulation of gene expression and chromatin organization, advancing the understanding of diseases ranging from birth defects to cancer.” Rockefeller University Victor Ambros
(b. 1953)  United States “for the discovery of a new world of genetic regulation by microRNAs, a class of tiny RNA molecules that inhibit translation or destabilize complementary mRNA targets.” University of Massachusetts Medical School Gary Ruvkun
(b. 1952)  United States Massachusetts General Hospital
Harvard Medical School Jennifer Doudna
(b. 1964)  United States “for harnessing an ancient mechanism of bacterial immunity into a powerful and general technology for editing genomes, with wide-ranging implications across biology and medicine.” University of California, Berkeley
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Emmanuelle Charpentier
(b. 1968)  France Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research
Umeå University 2016^[5] Edward S. Boyden
(b. 1979)  United States “for the development and implementation of optogenetics – the programming of neurons to express light-activated ion channels and pumps, so that their electrical activity can be controlled by light.” Massachusetts Institute of Technology Karl Deisseroth
(b. 1971)  United States Stanford University
Howard Hughes Medical Institute John Hardy
(b. 1954)  United Kingdom “for discovering mutations in the amyloid precursor protein (APP) gene that cause early onset Alzheimer’s disease, linking accumulation of APP-derived beta-amyloid peptide to Alzheimer’s pathogenesis and inspiring new strategies for disease prevention.” University College London Helen Hobbs
(b. 1952)  United States “for the discovery of human genetic variants that alter the levels and distribution of cholesterol and other lipids, inspiring new approaches to the prevention of cardiovascular and liver disease.” University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Svante Pääbo
(b. 1955)  Sweden “for pioneering the sequencing of ancient DNA and ancient genomes, thereby illuminating the origins of modern humans, our relationships to extinct relatives such as Neanderthals, and the evolution of human populations and traits.” Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology 2017^[6] Stephen J. Elledge
(b. 1956)  United States “for elucidating how eukaryotic cells sense and respond to damage in their DNA and providing insights into the development and treatment of cancer.” Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Harvard Medical School
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Harry F. Noller
(b. 1939)  United States “for discovering the centrality of RNA in forming the active centers of the ribosome, the fundamental machinery of protein synthesis in all cells, thereby connecting modern biology to the origin of life and also explaining how many natural antibiotics disrupt protein synthesis.” University of California, Santa Cruz Roeland Nusse
(b. 1950)  Netherlands “for pioneering research on the Wnt pathway, one of the crucial intercellular signaling systems in development, cancer and stem cell biology.” Stanford University
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Yoshinori Ohsumi
(b. 1945)  Japan “for elucidating autophagy, the recycling system that cells use to generate nutrients from their own inessential or damaged components.” Tokyo Institute of Technology Huda Zoghbi
(b. 1954)  Lebanon
 United States “for discoveries of the genetic causes and biochemical mechanisms of spinocerebellar ataxia and Rett syndrome, findings that have provided insight into the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative and neurological diseases.” Baylor College of Medicine
Texas Children’s Hospital
Howard Hughes Medical Institute 2018^[6] Joanne Chory
(b. 1955)  United States “for discovering how plants optimize their growth, development, and cellular structure to transform sunlight into chemical energy.” Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Peter Walter
(b. 1954)  Germany
 United States “for elucidating the unfolded protein response, a cellular quality-control system that detects disease-causing unfolded proteins and directs cells to take corrective measures.” University of California, San Francisco
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Kazutoshi Mori
(b. 1958)  Japan Kyoto University Kim Nasmyth
(b. 1952)  United Kingdom “for elucidating the sophisticated mechanism that mediates the perilous separation of duplicated chromosomes during cell division and thereby prevents genetic diseases such as cancer.” University of Oxford Don W. Cleveland
(b. 1950)  United States “for elucidating the molecular pathogenesis of a type of inherited ALS, including the role of glia in neurodegeneration, and for establishing antisense oligonucleotide therapy in animal models of ALS and Huntington disease.” University of California, San Diego 2019^[6] C. Frank Bennett
(b. 1960)  United States “for the development of an effective antisense oligonucleotide therapy for children with the neurodegenerative disease spinal muscular atrophy.” Ionis Pharmaceuticals Adrian R. Krainer
(b. 1958)  United States Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Angelika Amon
(1967–2020)  Austria
 United States “for determining the consequences of aneuploidy, an abnormal chromosome number resulting from chromosome mis-segregation.” Massachusetts Institute of Technology Xiaowei Zhuang
(b. 1972)  China
 United States “for discovering hidden structures in cells by developing super-resolution imaging – a method that transcends the fundamental spatial resolution limit of light microscopy.” Harvard University
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Zhijian James Chen
(b. 1966)  China
 United States “for elucidating how DNA triggers immune and autoimmune responses from the interior of a cell through the discovery of the DNA-sensing enzyme cGAS.” UT Southwestern Medical Center
Howard Hughes Medical Institute 2020^[7] Jeffrey M. Friedman
(b. 1954)  United States “for the discovery of a new endocrine system through which adipose tissue signals the brain to regulate food intake.” Rockefeller University
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Franz-Ulrich Hartl
(b. 1957)  Germany “for discovering functions of molecular chaperones in mediating protein folding and preventing protein aggregation.” Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry Arthur L. Horwich
(b. 1951)  United States “for discovering functions of molecular chaperones in mediating protein folding and preventing protein aggregation.” Yale School of Medicine
Howard Hughes Medical Institute David Julius
(b. 1955)  United States “for discovering molecules, cells, and mechanisms underlying pain sensation.” University of California, San Francisco Virginia Man-Yee Lee
(b. 1945)  China
 United States “for discovering TDP43 protein aggregates in frontotemporal dementia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and revealing that different forms of alpha-synuclein, in different cell types, underlie Parkinson’s disease and Multiple System Atrophy.” University of Pennsylvania 2021^[8] David Baker
(b. 1962)  United States “for developing technology that allowed the design of proteins never seen before in nature, including novel proteins that have the potential for therapeutic intervention in human diseases.” University of Washington
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Catherine Dulac
(b. 1963)  France
 United States “for deconstructing the complex behavior of parenting to the level of cell-types and their wiring, and demonstrating that the neural circuits governing both male and female-specific parenting behaviors are present in both sexes.” Harvard University
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Yuk Ming Dennis Lo
(b. 1963)  Hong Kong “for discovering that fetal DNA is present in maternal blood and can be used for the prenatal testing of trisomy 21 and other genetic disorders” The Chinese University of Hong Kong Richard J. Youle
(b. 1952)  United States “for elucidating a quality control pathway that clears damaged mitochondria and thereby protects against Parkinson’s Disease.” National Institutes of Health 2022^[9] Jeffery W. Kelly
(b. 1960)  United States “for elucidating the molecular basis of neurodegenerative and cardiac transthyretin diseases, and for developing tafamidis, a drug that slows their progression.” Scripps Research Institute Katalin Karikó
(b. 1955)  Hungary “for engineering modified RNA technology which enabled rapid development of effective COVID-19 vaccines.” BioNTech
University of Pennsylvania Drew Weissman
(b. 1958)  United States University of Pennsylvania Shankar Balasubramanian
(b. 1966)  India
 United Kingdom “for the development of a robust and affordable method to determine DNA sequences on a massive scale, which has transformed the practice of science and medicine.” University of Cambridge David Klenerman
(b. 1959)  United Kingdom University of Cambridge Pascal Mayer
(b. 1963)  France Alphanosos 2023^[10] Clifford P. Brangwynne
(b. -)  United States “for discovering a fundamental mechanism of cellular organization mediated by phase separation of proteins and RNA into membraneless liquid droplets.” Princeton University
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Marine Biological Laboratory Anthony A. Hyman
(b. 1962)  United Kingdom Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics Demis Hassabis
(b. 1976)  United Kingdom “for developing a deep learning AI method that rapidly and accurately predicts the three-dimensional structure of proteins from their amino acid sequence..” DeepMind John Jumper
(b. -)  United Kingdom DeepMind Emmanuel Mignot
(b. 1959)  United States “for discovering that narcolepsy is caused by the loss of a small population of brain cells that make a wake-promoting substance, paving the way for the development of new treatments for sleep disorders..” Stanford University School of Medicine Masashi Yanagisawa
(b. 1960)  USA University of Tsukuba