Breakthrough Prize

Founded in 2013 by a group that includes Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki, the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences acknowledges “transformative advances toward understanding living systems and extending human life.” Commonly considered to be Silicon Valley’s answer to the Nobel Prize, the award comes with a $3 million prize.

• Ellen Sidransky and Andrew Singleton (2024). For identifying GBA1 and LRRK2 as risk genes for Parkinson’s disease, implicating autophagy and lysosomal biology as critical contributors to the pathogenesis of the disease.
• Richard Youle (2021). For elucidating a quality control pathway that clears damaged mitochondria and thereby protects against Parkinson’s Disease.