2014 Breakthrough Prizes Awarded in Fundamental Physics and Life Sciences for a Total of $21 Million – MIT’s Robert Langer gets $3 Million
Curator: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN
2014 Breakthrough Prizes Awarded in Fundamental Physics and Life Sciences for a Total of $21 Million
Mark Zuckerberg and Yuri Milner announced new $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics.
PR Newswire
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 13, 2013
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 13, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — The names of the 2014 Breakthrough Prize winners in Fundamental Physics and Life Sciences were unveiled at an exclusive ceremony at the NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, CA. At a total awarded amount of $21 million, sponsored by Sergey Brin & Anne Wojcicki, Jack Ma & Cathy Zhang, Yuri & Julia Milner and Mark Zuckerberg & Priscilla Chan, the prizes aim to celebrate scientists and generate excitement about the pursuit of science as a career.
The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics recognizes transformative achievements in the field of fundamental physics, with a special focus on recent developments. The 2014 winners are:
- Michael B. Green, University of Cambridge, and John H. Schwarz, California Institute of Technology,for opening new perspectives on quantum gravity and the unification of forces.
The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences recognizes excellence in research aimed at curing intractable diseases and extending human life. The 2014 recipients are:
- James Allison, MD Anderson Cancer Center for the discovery of T cell checkpoint blockade as effective cancer therapy.
- Mahlon DeLong, Emory University 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.
- Michael Hall, University of Basel for the discovery of Target of Rapamycin (TOR) and its role in cell growth control.
- Robert Langer, David H. Koch Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for discoveries leading to the development of controlled drug-release systems and new biomaterials.
- Richard Lifton, Yale University; Howard Hughes Medical Institute for the discovery of genes and biochemical mechanisms that cause hypertension.
- Alexander Varshavsky, California Institute of Technology for discovering critical molecular determinants and biological functions of intracellular protein degradation.
“Scientists should be celebrated as heroes, and we are honored to be part of today’s celebration of the newest winners of the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences and the Fundamental Physics Prize,” said Anne Wojcicki and Sergey Brin.
The prize ceremony was hosted by actor Kevin Spacey, and awards were presented by the Prize sponsors and by celebrities including Conan O’Brien, Glenn Close, Rob Lowe and Michael C. Hall. The event was organized in cooperation with Vanity Fair and produced and directed by Don Mischer, the producer and director of the Academy Awards, among other television and live events. Grammy-nominated singer Lana Del Ray performed live for the guests of the ceremony.
The event will be televised by the Science Channel, one of the Discovery networks; it will be broadcast at 9pm on January 27th.
At the end of the ceremony, Mark Zuckerberg and Yuri Milner announced the launch of a new $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics. The details of the new prize will be announced at a later date.
“The Breakthrough Prize is our effort to put the spotlight on these amazing heroes. Their work in physics and genetics, cosmology, neurology and mathematics will change lives for generations and we are excited to celebrate them,” commented Mark Zuckerberg.
Yuri Milner said: “Einstein said, Pure mathematics is the poetry of logical ideas. It is in this spirit that Mark and myself are announcing a new Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics. The work that the Prize recognizes could be the foundation for genetic engineering, quantum computing or Artificial Intelligence; but above all, for human knowledge itself.”
This commitment to the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge is not limited to the Prize ceremony. On December 13, there will be two Breakthrough Prize Symposiums: at Stanford, on the Future of Fundamental Science; and at the University of California, San Francisco, on the Future of the Biological Sciences. Winners of the Breakthrough Prize from 2012, 2013 and 2014 will give lectures and take part in panel discussions before an invited audience.
Art Levinson, the chairman of the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Foundation, said: “We are honored to recognize such an outstanding group of scientists as this year’s Breakthrough Prize Laureates. We are sure they will continue to push back the boundaries of knowledge in the years to come.”
About the Breakthrough Prizes
The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics and Life Sciences are founded by Sergey Brin & Anne Wojcicki, Jack Ma & Cathy Zhang, Yuri & Julia Milner and Mark Zuckerberg & Priscilla Chan. The prizes aim to celebrate scientists and generate excitement about the pursuit of science as a career. Breakthrough Prizes are funded by a grant from Sergey Brin and Anne Wojcicki’s foundation, The Brin Wojcicki Foundation; a grant from Mark Zuckerberg’s fund at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation; a grant from Jack Ma Foundation; and a grant from Milner Foundation. Laureates of all prizes are chosen by Selection Committees, which are comprised of prior recipients of the prizes.
The Selection Committee for the 2014 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics included:
- Nima Arkani-Hamed
- Lyn Evans
- Fabiola Gianotti
- Alan Guth
- Stephen Hawking
- Joseph Incandela
- Alexei Kitaev
- Maxim Kontsevich
- Andrei Linde
- Juan Maldacena
- Alexander Polyakov
- Nathan Seiberg
- Ashoke Sen
- Edward Witten
The Selection Committee for the 2014 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences included:
- Cornelia I. Bargmann
- David Botstein
- Lewis C. Cantley
- Hans Clevers
- Napoleone Ferrara
- Titia de Lange
- Eric S. Lander
- Charles L. Sawyers
- Bert Vogelstein
- Robert A. Weinberg
- Shinya Yamanaka
Additional information on the Breakthrough Prizes is available at:
www.breakthroughprizeinlifesciences.org
www.fundamentalphysicsprize.org
Media Contacts
Brunswick Group:
Oliver Phillips
breakthroughprize@brunswickgroup.com
+1 415 671 7676
Prize Foundations:
Leonid Solovyev
solovyev@fundamentalphysicsprize.org
+44 7590 976 334
SOURCE Brunswick Group
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/prnewswire/press_releases/California/2013/12/13/NY33121
Robert Langer, David H. Koch Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for discoveries leading to the development of controlled drug-release systems and new biomaterials.
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He served as a member of the United States Food and Drug Administration’s SCIENCE Board, the FDA’s highest advisory board, from 1995 — 2002 and as its Chairman from 1999-2002.
Dr. Langer has received over 220 major awards. He is one of 7 individuals to have received both the United States National Medal of Science (2006) and the United States National Medal of Technology and Innovation (2011). He also received the 2002 Charles Stark Draper Prize, considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for engineers, the 2008 Millennium Prize, the world’s largest technology prize, the 2012 Priestley Medal, the highest award of the American Chemical Society, the 2013 Wolf Prize in Chemistry and the 2014 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences. He is the also the only engineer to receive the Gairdner Foundation International Award; 82 recipients of this award have subsequently received a Nobel Prize. Among numerous other awards Langer has received are the Dickson Prize for Science (2002), Heinz Award for Technology, Economy and Employment (2003), the Harvey Prize (2003), the John Fritz Award (2003) (given previously to inventors such as Thomas Edison and Orville Wright), the General Motors Kettering Prize for Cancer Research (2004), the Dan David Prize in Materials Science (2005), the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research (2005), the largest prize in the U.S. for medical research, induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame (2006), the Max Planck Research Award (2008), the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research (2008), the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize (2011) and the Terumo International Prize (2012). In 1998, he received the Lemelson-MIT prize, the world’s largest prize for invention for being “one of history’s most prolific inventors in medicine.” In 1989 Dr. Langer was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and in 1992 he was elected to both the National Academy of Engineering and to the National Academy of Sciences, and in 2012 he was elected to the National Academy of Inventors.
Forbes Magazine (1999) and Bio World (1990) have named Dr. Langer as one of the 25 most important individuals in biotechnology in the world. Discover Magazine (2002) named him as one of the 20 most important people in this area. Forbes Magazine (2002) selected Dr. Langer as one of the 15 innovators world wide who will reinvent our future. Time Magazine and CNN (2001) named Dr. Langer as one of the 100 most important people in America and one of the 18 top people in science or medicine in America (America’s Best). Parade Magazine (2004) selected Dr. Langer as one of 6 “Heroes whose research may save your life.” Dr. Langer has received honorary doctorates from Harvard University, the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, Yale University, the ETH (Switzerland), the Technion (Israel), the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel), the Universite Catholique de Louvain (Belgium), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Willamette University, the University of Liverpool (England), Bates College, the University of Nottingham (England), Albany Medical College, Pennsylvania State University, Northwestern University, Uppsala University (Sweden), Tel Aviv University (Israel), Boston University, Ben Gurion University (Israel), Drexel University and the University of California – San Francisco Medal. He received his Bachelor’s Degree from Cornell University in 1970 and his Sc.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974, both in Chemical Engineering.
Langer Lab @MIT
Work is in progress in the following areas:
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Publications of Langer Lab
http://web.mit.edu/langerlab/publications/index.html
SOURCE
http://web.mit.edu/langerlab/research/index.html
Related Sources:
Controlled Release Technology: Delivery Systems for Pharmaceuticals, Proteins, and Other Agents
July 8-12, 2013 The ways in which chemicals or drugs are administered have gained increasing attention in the past two decades. Normally, a chemical is administered in a high dose at a given time only to have to repeat that dose several hours or days later. This is not economical and sometimes results in damaging side effects. As a consequence, increasing attention has been focused on methods of giving drugs continually for prolonged time periods and in a controlled fashion. The primary method of accomplishing this controlled release has been through incorporating the chemicals within polymers. This technology now spans many fields and includes pharmaceutical, food and agricultural applications, pesticides, cosmetics, and household products. In the pharmaceutical field, in addition to the importance of polymers, an understanding of the physiological barriers in the human body is also critical to developing appropriate controlled release systems. The skin, the gastrointestinal tract, the nose and the eye are of particular importance. Finally, recent advances in genetic engineering have spawned numerous new polypeptide agents. Approaches for delivering and stabilizing these molecules will be discussed. The lectures, in morning and afternoon sessions, will be presented by faculty members at MIT and other universities who are leaders in the topics to be covered. The lectures are intended to review the recent advances in the art and science of controlled release technology and to assess the prospects and directions of future developments. The program is designed for chemists, chemical engineers, pharmaceutical scientists, and technical managers with an interest in controlled release technology. Scientists in other fields such as food, agricultural, etc., may also benefit from this course. More on Controlled Release Technology Program >> More information about Short Programs: MIT Professional Education >> Teaching Faculty Dr. Robert S. Langer, Program Director, David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT. Dr. Alexander Klibanov, Professor of Chemistry at MIT. Dr. Nicholas A. Peppas, Professor of Chemical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Pharmaceutics at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Frank Szoka, Professor for the College of Pharmacy at the University of California, San Francisco. SOURCE http://web.mit.edu/langerlab/summerprog.html
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