The 2016 Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was awarded to Kip S. Thorne, of the California Institute of Technology (CalTech), and Rainer Weiss, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They lead the LIGO Project with CalTech’s Ronald W.P. Drever, also a recipient of the prize, and they share this honor with the other 1012 who were part of this research. Together they were the first to detect the gravitational waves predicted by Albert Einstein.
Find Dr. Thorne’s article in the 1972 Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics:
Find Dr. Weiss’ article in the 1980 Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics:
Five Breakthrough Prizes in Life Sciences were awarded in 2017, to the following laureates:
• Stephen Elledge, of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, “for elucidating how eukaryotic cells sense and respond to damage in their DNA and providing insights into the development and treatment of cancer.”
Dr. Elledge is scheduled to write an article for the 2017 Annual Review of Cancer Biology.
• Harry F. Noller, of the University of California, Santa Cruz, “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.”
Find Dr. Noller’s articles in the Annual Review of Biochemistry:
• Roeland Nusse, of Stanford University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, “for pioneering research on the Wnt pathway, one of the crucial intercellular signaling systems in development, cancer and stem cell biology.”
Find Dr. Nusse’s articles in the Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology:
• Yoshinori Ohsumi, of the Tokyo Institute of Technology, “for elucidating autophagy, the recycling system that cells use to generate nutrients from their own inessential or damaged components.” This comes two months after Dr. Ohsumi won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Find Dr. Ohsumi’s articles in the Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology:
• Huda Y. Zoghbi, of the Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children’s Hospital, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, “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.”
Find Dr. Zoghby’s articles in the Annual Review of Neuroscience, the Annual Review of Physiology, and the Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics:
Dr. Ohsumi’s research has shown how “self-eating” in cells provides them with the energy and components necessary to renew themselves, helping organisms resist starvation, among other types of stress. Autophagy also helps cells to fight infections and prevent the negative consequences of aging.