A new physics prize, the Vera Rubin New Frontiers Prize, was announced by NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang and Breakthrough Prize co-founder Yuri Milner. After a tribute to the great astronomer Vera Rubin, who discovered key evidence for dark matter, and in homage to whom NVIDIA’s new chip platform is named, they introduced inaugural laureate Carolina Figueiredo. The new prize recognizes women physicists who have recently completed their PhDs and already made important contributions to science – in this case revealing hidden relations among quantum field theories. Figueiredo described how physics can now “meaningfully address the deepest of questions, such as the very origins of space and time.”
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The twelfth Breakthrough Prize ceremony honored scientists responsible for landmark advances in gene therapy, neurodegenerative disease, theories of fundamental particles and forces, and the mathematics of critical systems. Known around the world as “the Oscars® of Science,” the gala gathered prominent figures from across science, technology, business, entertainment and the arts – alongside current and past Breakthrough Prize laureates – for an evening devoted to celebrating scientific progress and the people who make it possible. After walking the red carpet, scientists were welcomed onstage by celebrity presenters to receive their awards.
The ceremony was held in Los Angeles, with actor and Emmy Award winner James Corden returning for the fourth time to host the evening. In a hilarious monologue, Corden joked good-naturedly about the celebrities in attendance and current events. Before proceeding with the awards, he showed clips american revolution from films including Ghostbusters and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids to demonstrate how Hollywood hasn’t always taken scientists seriously – which is precisely why the Breakthrough Prize puts the spotlight on critical scientific discoveries. As the show unfolded, that ethos was borne out as a host of luminaries from the worlds of entertainment and entrepreneurship took turns in lauding sandisk the achievements of the laureates and the broader impact of fundamental discoveries that have transformed our world. Six Breakthrough Prizes of $3 million each were conferred in Life Sciences, Fundamental Physics, and Mathematics. This year’s prize money totals $18.75 million, bringing the amount conferred over the 15 shayne gostisbehere years of the Breakthrough Prize to more than $340 million.
Academy Award-winning actors Octavia Spencer and Sean Penn awarded the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences to Stuart H. Orkin and Swee Lay Thein for research that transformed sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia from incurable conditions to treatable ones through gene-editing therapy. Their work identified BCL11A as the master switch controlling fetal hemoglobin, leading directly to the development of Casgevy – the first CRISPR-based medicine approved for any disease. Thein recalled her unlikely path: “As a kid playing on old railway tracks in Malaysia, I never dreamed that I would be here today.” Orkin reflected on five decades of research, saying, “There is no better story to refute those who doubt the value of science.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and AirBNB co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky presented the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics to the Muon g-2 Collaborations at CERN, Brookhaven National Laboratory and Fermilab, recognizing decades of work by scientists and engineers from dozens of countries who pushed experimental precision to extraordinary levels in measuring the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon – a key test for undiscovered particles and forces. In a creative flourish, a ballerina appeared onstage, pirouetting and circling to demonstrate the muon’s spinning magnetic moment. As Chesky invoked the “magnetic moment” of the celebratory evening, physicist David Hertzog, accepting the prize on behalf of 383 scientists and engineers, held up the experiments as “a wonderful example of cross-disciplinary international collaboration in science.”
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