The Breakthrough Prize ceremony, which honors “scientists who are changing the world” with significant cash prizes, came to Hollywood for the first time on Saturday night, having previously been held in San Francisco — and the world’s top innovators were surrounded by more stars than one can imagine. see in a telescope.
The ninth edition of the event — founded and financially supported by Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan And Mark Zuckerberg, Julia Milner And Yuri Milner And Anne Wojcickiand known as “the Oscars of science” – took place on the open-air rooftop of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.
James Corden hosted, as was the case in previous years; presenters included Kristen Bell, lily collins, Danny DeVito, Robert Downey Jr. (next to Zuckerberg), Gal Gadot, Ashton Kutcher, Brian Larson, Edward Norton, Leslie Odom Jr., Chris Pine And Chloe Zhao; John legend And will.i.am executed; and audience included Christina Aguilera, Vincent Diesel, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Mila Kunis, Lionel Richie And Maria Sharapova.
But the real toasts of the evening were the scientists, like Drew Weissman And Katalin Karikowhose work has been fundamental to the development of mRNA vaccines against COVID, and who were greeted with a prolonged standing ovation as they took the stage to receive the Breakthrough Prize in Life Science for which they had been chosen in 2022. (There was no in-person Breakthrough Prize event in 2020, 2021 or 2022 due to the pandemic.)
At this year’s ceremony, which was produced by Don Mischer from Don Mischer Productions with scenic design from Basil Walter from BW Architects, a total of $15.75 million was awarded to the winners of the Breakthrough Prize.
The event’s top honors are breakthrough awards in three categories – fundamental physics, life sciences and math – with each recipient receiving a $3 million cash prize for their contributions.
Breakthrough Prizes in Life Sciences were awarded to:
- Clifford P. Brangwynne, Princeton University, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Marine Biological Laboratory; And Anthony A. HymanMax Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics for their discovery of “a fundamental mechanism of cellular organization mediated by phase separation of proteins and RNA in membraneless liquid droplets.”
- Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, DeepMind; for “developing a deep learning AI method that quickly and accurately predicts the three-dimensional structure of proteins based on their amino acid sequence.”
- Emmanuel MignotStanford University School of Medicine and Masashi Yanagisawa, University of Tsukuba; for “the discovery that narcolepsy is caused by the loss of a small population of brain cells that form a wake-promoting substance, paving the way for the development of new treatments for sleep disorders.”
The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was shared by four individuals for fundamental work in quantum information:
- Charles H BennettIBM Thomas J Watson Research Center
- Gilles BrassardUniversity of Montreal
- David GermanOxford university
- Peter W. ShorMIT
The Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics was awarded to:
- Daniel A SpielmanYale University, for “contributions to theoretical computer science and mathematics, including spectral graph theory, the Kadison-Singer problem, numerical linear algebra, optimization, and coding theory.”
In addition, six New Horizons Prizes, worth $100,000 each, were shared among 11 budding scientists and mathematicians selected for their early, but substantial, impact in their fields.
And three Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prizes, worth $50,000 each, were awarded to female mathematicians who recently completed their PhDs and achieved significant results.
The New Horizons in Physics Awards have been won by:
- David Simmons-DuffinCalifornia Institute of Technology
- Anna GrassellinoFermilab
Six scientists shared a New Horizons award for their development of optical tweezer arrays for use in quantum information science, metrology and molecular physics:
- Hannes Bernien University of Chicago
- Manuel EndresKaltech
- Adam M. KaufmanJILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology and University of Colorado
- Kang Kuen NiHarvard University
- Hannes PichlerUniversity of Innsbruck and Austrian Academy of Sciences
- Jeff ThompsonPrinceton University
New Horizons in Mathematics awards were awarded to:
- Ana CaraianiImperial College London and University of Bonn;
- Ron EldanWeizmann Institute of Science and Microsoft Research
- James MaynardOxford University and Institute for Advanced Study
The 2023 Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Awards have been awarded to:
- Maggie MillerStanford University and Clay Mathematics Institute (PhD Princeton University 2020)
- Jinyoung ParkStanford University (PhD Rutgers University 2020)
- Vera TraubUniversity of Bonn (PhD University of Bonn 2020)
