Six $3 Million Prizes Awarded for Outstanding Discoveries in Life Sciences, Fundamental Physics and Mathematics

Gene Therapies for Inherited Blindness, Sickle Cell Disease and Beta-Thalassemia

Discovery of Key Genetic Cause of ALS and Frontotemporal Dementia

Precision Measurement of Muon’s Magnetic Moment

Advances in Mathematics of Waves and Nonlinear Systems

Special Prize for Pioneer of Theory of Strong Nuclear Force

Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Awarded to Jean Bennett, Katherine A. High and Albert Maguire; Stuart H. Orkin and Swee Lay Thein; Rosa Rademakers and Bryan Traynor

Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics Awarded to Frank Merle

Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics Awarded to Muon g-2 Collaborations at CERN, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and Fermilab

Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics Awarded to David J. Gross

Inaugural Vera Rubin New Frontiers Prize Awarded to Carolina Figueiredo

Six New Horizons Prizes Awarded for Early-Career Achievements in Physics and Mathematics

Three Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prizes Awarded to Women Mathematicians for Early-Career Work

Laureates to be Celebrated Tonight at Breakthrough Prize Ceremony in Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES, April 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The Breakthrough Prize Foundation today announced the winners of the 2026 Breakthrough Prizes, honoring scientists whose discoveries are significantly driving growth of human knowledge. In the Life Sciences, their work has led to gene therapies for three devastating diseases – inherited blindness, sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia, and identified a key genetic cause of two more – ALS and frontotemporal dementia. In Physics and Mathematics, they have constructed theories of the fundamental forces of nature and probed them to mind-blowing precision, and revealed deep truths about the mathematical behavior of waves.

The Breakthrough Prizes – popularly known as the “Oscars® of Science” – were created to celebrate the wonders of our scientific age. Co-founded by Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, Julia and Yuri Milner, and Anne Wojcicki, the prizes are now in their 14th year.

This year, six Breakthrough Prizes of $3 million each were awarded. In addition, the Foundation recognized 15 early-career physicists and mathematicians, who share six $100,000 New Horizons Prizes. Three women mathematicians recently completing PhDs each receives a $50,000 Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize.

This year’s prize money totals $18.75 million, bringing the amount conferred over the 15 years of the Breakthrough Prize to more than $340 million.

“This year’s laureates show what great science can do — deepen our understanding of the world and lead to discoveries that improve millions of lives,” said Mark Zuckerberg and Dr. Priscilla Chan, founders of Biohub. “We’re proud to recognize their work.”

“The brilliant scientists who win the Breakthrough Prize,” said Yuri Milner, co-founder of Breakthrough Prize Foundation, “Are building a cathedral of knowledge on foundations laid down by the giants who came before them. We owe our civilization – and its future – to them.”

Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences

Jean Bennett, Katherine A. High and Albert Maguire share the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences. This prize recognizes work that led to the first FDA–approved gene replacement therapy. It has transformed the lives of people born with Leber congenital amaurosis, a rare inherited retinal disease that usually results in total blindness in early adulthood, enabling children who had been going blind to gain their independence, attend regular schools, play outside at night, and in some cases even qualify for driver’s licenses. The therapy replaces the defective RPE65 gene, which produces a malfunctioning version of a protein critical to the visual cycle – the process by which the retina responds to light. The husband-and-wife team of molecular biologist Bennett and ophthalmic surgeon Maguire invented and developed the therapy from first conception to an effective treatment in animal models (including restoring sight to a number of Swedish Briard dogs which they went on to adopt). In 2005, High, a physician-scientist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) invited Bennett and Maguire to collaborate on a human trial. High’s laboratory and clinical gene therapy expertise proved crucial in the development of the approved drug, including gaining regulatory approval to conduct the initial clinical trials, and in directing the production and characterization of high-quality viral vector preparations used to introduce the replacement gene. The three physician-scientists worked together to design the pivotal trial, including developing and validating a novel clinical endpoint to measure the vector’s clinical effect.

Nearly all eligible Leber congenital amaurosis patients with RPE65 mutations in the United States have now been treated, and many others around the world are now gaining access to the therapy. The benefits have proved durable, with patients treated over a decade ago maintaining stable vision improvements. More broadly, this discovery demonstrated that the technology could work safely and effectively, establishing regulatory pathways and manufacturing approaches that opened the door to gene therapy approvals for a range of genetic diseases. Since their pioneering work, hundreds of trials, including over 100 retinal gene therapy trials have been conducted, with more than half a dozen currently in late-stage clinical testing.

Stuart H. Orkin and Swee Lay Thein share the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences. Their research transformed the devastating blood disorders sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia from incurable to treatable conditions through gene editing therapy.

In beta-thalassemia the body fails to produce enough healthy hemoglobin; while in sickle cell disease, defective hemoglobin causes red blood cells to become stiff, sticky and sickle-shaped. But people who produce elevated levels of fetal form of hemoglobin as adults, rather than switching entirely to adult hemoglobin, have much milder forms of the diseases. This presented a tantalizing possibility for translational medicine: genetically switching fetal hemoglobin production back on, and so mitigating disease symptoms. Thein mapped the trait of persistent fetal hemoglobin production to chromosome 2, and subsequently identified the gene BCL11A as the key genetic player. Orkin demonstrated that BCL11A functions as the master repressor of fetal hemoglobin, shutting down its production after birth, and that inactivating it restored fetal hemoglobin production in mice and eliminated sickle cell disease symptoms. His laboratory identified a specific DNA enhancer region that controls BCL11A expression itself, but crucially only in red blood cells, providing a precise and safe target for therapeutic intervention without affecting other cells.

The translation of these discoveries into a CRISPR-based gene therapy (Casgevy) that edits this enhancer region in patients’ own blood stem cells resulted in the first CRISPR-based medicine approved for any disease. This work has revolutionized treatment for sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia, providing a potentially curative one-time therapy for conditions affecting millions worldwide.

Rosa Rademakers and Bryan Traynor independently solved a decades-old mystery in neurodegenerative disease by discovering the most common genetic cause of both amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), the second leading cause of early-onset dementia. Through multi-year, international collaborations, they collected large-scale data from families where both ALS and FTD appeared together; and through painstaking genetic analysis they zeroed in on a key genetic trigger for both diseases. In 2011, their labs simultaneously identified a mutation in the C9orf72 gene. It is an expansion mutation – a repeat of the same six-letter sequence of DNA, occurring hundreds to thousands of times in affected individuals.

The discovery represents a landmark moment in the study of these diseases. This single mutation explains about a third of familial cases of both diseases in European populations, as well as more than five percent of cases in patients with no family history of the diseases. It sheds light on the disease mechanisms, pointing in particular to multiple effects of toxic RNA and proteins in brain cells. It has established ALS and FTD – previously considered two largely separate disorders – on a disease spectrum, sharing risk factors and molecular causes. And perhaps most significantly it has enabled genetic testing for affected families, and opened new pathways for the development of treatments for these currently incurable diseases – including at least two therapies currently undergoing clinical trials. While ALS and FTD remain incurable, thanks to the C9orf72 discovery they are now conditions with plausible molecular causes and promising therapeutic targets.

Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics

Frank Merle’s work has significantly advanced the modern understanding of nonlinear evolution equations – the mathematical descriptions of how waves, fluids, and other dynamic systems change over time. His work has a particular focus on singularities: points where solutions to the equations surge to infinity. Alone and in collaborations, he has solved several fundamental problems, including proving that certain equations long thought to be well-behaved actually “blow up” – become infinite – in finite time.

Working on the soliton resolution conjecture (which predicts that any wave disturbance will eventually decompose into a set of stable, shape-preserving waves), Merle and Carlos Kenig, joined later by Thomas Duyckaerts, developed the powerful channels of energy technique coupled with the concentration compactness method. With Yvan Martel and Pierre Raphael, he revealed how singularities form in the KdV type equation (which describes various wave phenomena from shallow waves to rogue waves). Perhaps most remarkable is his work on the nonlinear version of the famous Schrödinger equation from quantum physics. In early work, he made a complete classification of all the ways this equation’s solutions can blow up. Later he proved, with Pierre Raphael, Igor Rodnianski, and Jérémie Szeftel, that the defocusing version of the equation – long believed to be inherently stable – can in fact blow up in finite time. This highly surprising result exploited an unexpected connection to fluid dynamics: it helped to resolve a major open problem, identifying smooth solutions to the compressible Euler and Navier-Stokes equations where the fluid’s density and velocity become infinite – representing a complete breakdown of the fluid description. Throughout his career, Merle’s insights have overturned fundamental assumptions in the field, forged deep connections between mathematics and physics, and opened new avenues toward some of the most celebrated unsolved problems.

Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics

Across more than six decades, scientists and engineers from three “muon g-2” collaborations, representing dozens of institutions, have pushed experimental precision ever higher in pursuit of a single, very significant number: the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon. The muon is a heavy, unstable cousin of the electron, and like the electron it can behave like a tiny magnet. The physicists are looking to capture how the muon’s magnetic strength is subtly affected by the “foam” of virtual particles constantly popping in and out of empty space around it. Measuring the muon’s magnetism and comparing it to theoretical predictions allows physicists to test whether any unknown particles or forces are hidden in this foam. In other words, to probe for new physics beyond the Standard Model, our most successful theory of particles and forces.

The CERN collaboration’s pioneering storage ring experiments of the 1960s and 1970s first measured the anomalous magnetic moment with meaningful precision. Then in the 1990s, Brookhaven National Laboratory’s reimagining of the experiment achieved a major improvement in precision. And after the audacious transportation of Brookhaven’s 50-ton, 15-meter-diameter storage ring 3,200 miles by road and barge to Fermilab in 2013, the experiment was systematically refined to achieve a final precision of 127 parts per billion – a mind-boggling 30,000 times more precise than the first g-2 experiment in 1965. The results had shown a tantalizing discrepancy with the value predicted by theory; and in 2023, Fermilab’s new results pushed that discrepancy close to the threshold considered evidence for new physics. Since then, the final, even more precise results, compared to newly evolved theoretical calculations narrowed the gap, but considerable uncertainty remains for the moment. Whatever the final verdict, this experiment represents a remarkable theoretical, experimental and technological endeavor, achieving extraordinary precision in the quest for fundamental understanding.

Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics

David J. Gross has been a leading figure in fundamental physics for six decades. In the early 1970s, there was a gap in quantum field theory, our best theory of particles and forces. The theory could not describe or accurately predict the strong nuclear force, which holds the nucleus of the atom together. But in 1973, Gross and his graduate student Frank Wilczek (as well as, independently, David Politzer) solved the mystery. They discovered that the strong force works the opposite way to familiar forces like gravity: it gets weaker as particles approach each other, but stronger as they move apart. This explained why quarks, the particles inside the atomic nucleus, can never escape or be observed in isolation, and it enabled the development of quantum chromodynamics – the theory of the strong force and the final foundation stone of the Standard Model of particle physics.

Gross has gone on to make seminal contributions across multiple areas of theoretical physics. For example, he and his collaborators developed a simplified quantum field theory that helped explain how particles can acquire mass; and developed new theoretical approaches attempting to unify all fundamental forces, including gravity, in a single framework known as heterotic string theory.

Alongside his theoretical work, Gross has a longstanding record of leadership in the physics community, in roles including Director of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, and President of the American Physical Society. He has helped establish physics institutes in India, China, and South America. He directed the Jerusalem Winter School in Theoretical Physics and chaired the Solvay Physics Conferences for the last 25 years. In 2025 he was one of the authors of an ambitious 40-year plan for physics on behalf of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. And over the course of his career, he has been a mentor to numerous brilliant students who became leaders themselves, passing on his vision of physics as a collaborative international endeavor.

Inaugural Vera Rubin New Frontiers Prize

A new physics prize, the Vera Rubin New Frontiers Prize, will be announced during the ceremony, along with the inaugural recipient, Carolina Figueiredo, from Princeton University. One $50,000 prize is awarded this year; from 2027 there will be 3 per year.

The prize is named in 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. The new prize recognizes women physicists within two years of their PhDs who have already made important contributions to science.

Carolina Figueiredo discovered that three apparently unrelated theories — two governing nuclear particles called gluons and pions, and the third describing particles in a “toy model” that does not describe the existing world — all forbid exactly the same set of particle collisions. This was a big surprise, as the three theories are quite different, with no reason to think they are connected. Figueiredo’s discovery revealed that the common behavior reflects a single underlying geometric structure: curves drawn on surfaces, within a framework now known as surfaceology. Intriguingly, this structure makes no reference to particles moving through space and time; yet it reproduces the predictions of conventional physics far more efficiently than the traditional approach, which tracks each particle’s movement through these dimensions. Figueiredo’s work thus advances – and perhaps brings closer to the real world – a broader program to reformulate the foundations of particle physics in purely geometric terms, with spacetime as an emergent phenomenon arising from a new set of principles.

New Horizons in Physics Prize

Benjamin R. Safdi has made wide-ranging contributions to the search for the axion, a hypothetical particle that would explain a long-standing puzzle about the strong nuclear force, and could account for the mysterious dark matter that makes up 85 percent of the Universe’s mass. He has proposed ingenious new strategies for detecting axion-like particles using observations of astronomical objects, from radio emissions of neutron stars to X-rays from white dwarfs.

Clay Córdova, Thomas Dumitrescu, Shu-Heng Shao, and Yifan Wang have discovered and developed the theory of “generalized symmetries” in quantum field theory. Symmetries have long been among the most powerful tools in physics. The work of these researchers has shown that the Standard Model of particle physics, as well as other quantum field theories, possess previously unrecognised symmetry structures. Their work has opened a broad new field with applications ranging from falsifying theories beyond the Standard Model to simulating fundamental particles on a lattice.

Dillon Brout, J. Colin Hill, Mathew Madhavacheril, Maria Vincenzi, Daniel Scolnic, and W. L. Kimmy Wu have gleaned powerful new results from the two most important tools for measuring the expansion and composition of the Universe: the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation left over from the Big Bang, and light from exploding stars known as Type Ia supernovae. Hill, Madhavacheril, and Wu have pushed analyses of CMB data beyond previous limits, producing the most precise tests to date of the standard cosmological model as well as of gravitational lensing of the CMB – the subtle bending of light from the early Universe by the matter it passes on its way to us. Meanwhile Brout, Scolnic, and Vincenzi built and analysed the largest modern supernova datasets – including Pantheon+, now the most cited supernova analysis in cosmology – delivering tight constraints on dark energy and the rate of expansion of the cosmos.

New Horizons in Mathematics Prize

Otis Chodosh has settled several questions in differential geometry that had been open since the 1970s and 1980s. With Chao Li, he proved a central conjecture in the field concerning a broad class of higher-dimensional spaces known as “aspherical manifolds.” With Christos Mantoulidis, he resolved a key problem in geometric analysis of minimal surfaces – surfaces that locally minimise their area, like soap films.

Vesselin Dimitrov and Yunqing Tang have solved long-standing problems in number theory that had resisted all previous approaches. With Frank Calegari, they proved the “unbounded denominators conjecture,” about a fundamental class of objects known as modular forms, using methods that surprised experts in the field. Most recently, again with Calegari, they proved the irrationality of a number related to a basic infinite series – the first result of its kind since Apéry’s celebrated work forty-five years ago.

Hong Wang has resolved or made advances on a family of notoriously difficult problems in harmonic analysis – a branch of mathematics that studies functions by decomposing them into fundamental components. With Josh Zahl, she proved the Kakeya conjecture in three dimensions, one of the most famous open problems in the field: it concerns how much space is needed to rotate a needle through every possible direction.

Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize

Amanda Hirschi has produced a number of significant papers in symplectic topology, a field studying higher-dimensional surfaces with a geometric structure that generalises the mathematics of classical mechanics. With co-authors, she developed a powerful new framework that leads to major simplifications in the foundations of Gromov-Witten theory. Anna Skorobogatova has made notable contributions in geometric measure theory, which uses techniques from analysis to tackle geometric problems such as finding surfaces of minimal area. In a series of papers with collaborators, she resolved a long-standing question about the structure of singularities of area-minimising surfaces, completing a programme that spanned over sixty years. Mingjia Zhang works on higher-dimensional objects in number theory called Shimura varieties. She provided a way to better understand the geometry of Mantovan’s celebrated “product formula” in number theory.

Citations for 2026 Laureates

2026 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences

Jean Bennett, University of Pennsylvania

Katherine A. High, University of Pennsylvania, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and Rockefeller University
Albert Maguire, University of Pennsylvania

For developing a therapy for inherited retinal degeneration that became the first FDA-approved gene therapy for a genetic disease.

Rosa Rademakers, VIB, University of Antwerp, and Mayo Clinic
Bryan Traynor, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health

For the discovery of the most common genetic cause of ALS and frontotemporal dementia which charted the path for new mechanistic studies of these diseases.

Stuart H. Orkin, Boston Children’s Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Swee Lay Thein, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health

For elucidating the mechanism driving the switch from fetal to adult hemoglobin and validating it as a therapeutic target for sickle-cell disease and beta-thalassemia.

2026 Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics

Frank Merle, CY Cergy Paris Université and Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques

For breakthroughs in nonlinear evolution equations, with regards to their stability, singularity formation, or resolution into solitons.

2026 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics

The Muon g-2 Collaborations at CERN, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and Fermilab

For multi-decade, groundbreaking contributions to the measurement of the muon’s anomalous magnetic moment, pushing the boundaries of experimental precision and igniting a new era in the quest for physics beyond the Standard Model.

2026 Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics

David J. Gross, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara

For a lifetime of groundbreaking contributions to theoretical physics, from the strong force to string theory, and for tireless advocacy for basic science worldwide.

2026 Vera Rubin New Frontiers Prize

Carolina Figueiredo, Princeton University

For contributions to the geometric structure of scattering amplitudes, revealing hidden relations among quantum field theories.

2026 Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize

Amanda Hirschi, IMJ-PRG, Sorbonne Université

For contributions to symplectic topology.

Anna Skorobogatova, Clay Research Fellow and ETH Zürich

For contributions to geometric measure theory.

Mingjia Zhang, Princeton University and Institute for Advanced Study

For contributions to the theory of Shimura varieties.

2026 New Horizons in Mathematics Prize

Otis Chodosh, Stanford University

For contributions to differential geometry and the calculus of variations, including work on minimal surfaces and manifolds with positive scalar curvature.

Hong Wang, Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques and New York University

For work in harmonic analysis, partial differential equations, and geometric measure theory, including the local smoothing conjecture, Furstenberg set conjecture, and the Kakeya conjecture.

Vesselin Dimitrov, Caltech
Yunqing Tang, University of California, Berkeley

For work in Diophantine geometry, including the proof of the Atkin-Swinnerton-Dyer unbounded denominators conjecture and new irrationality results for special values of Dirichlet L-series (both joint with Frank Calegari).

2026 New Horizons in Physics Prize

Benjamin R. Safdi, University of California, Berkeley

For proposing new ways to seek axion-like particles with laboratory experiments and astronomical observations.

Clay Córdova, University of Chicago
Thomas Dumitrescu, Mani L. Bhaumik Institute for Theoretical Physics, UCLA
Shu-Heng Shao, MIT
Yifan Wang, New York University

For generalizing the notion of symmetry in various ways, and for exploring the consequences of these generalized symmetries, in quantum field theory, particle physics, condensed matter physics, string theory, and quantum information theory.

Dillon Brout, Boston University
J. Colin Hill, Columbia University
Mathew Madhavacheril, University of Pennsylvania
Maria Vincenzi, University of Oxford
Daniel Scolnic, Duke University
W. L. Kimmy Wu, Caltech

For advances in cosmic microwave background and supernovae cosmology.

Videos and Photos

Assets, including headshots of this year’s winners, can be downloaded for media use here.

Images and select video from the 2026 Breakthrough Prize Gala — red carpet and ceremony — can be downloaded for media use here.

The show will premiere on YouTube on Sunday, April 26th at 3PM Eastern / 12PM Pacific.

For the 14th year, the Breakthrough Prize, renowned as the “Oscars® of Science,” recognizes the world’s top scientists. Each prize is $3 million and presented in the fields of Life Sciences, Fundamental Physics and Mathematics. In addition, up to three New Horizons in Physics Prizes, up to three New Horizons in Mathematics Prizes and up to three Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prizes are given out to early-career researchers each year. Laureates attend a gala award ceremony designed to celebrate their achievements and inspire the next generation of scientists.

The Breakthrough Prizes were founded by Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, Julia and Yuri Milner, and Anne Wojcicki and have been sponsored by foundations established by them. Selection Committees composed of previous Breakthrough Prize laureates in each field choose the winners. Information on the Breakthrough Prize is available at breakthroughprize.org.

SOURCE Breakthrough Prize

Matea Cañizarez, Age 18, of Quito, Ecuador, Receives Top Honors and $400,000 in Education Prizes for her Original Video Explaining Quark-Gluon Plasma

SAN FRANCISCO, April 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The Breakthrough Prize Foundation today announced Ecuador-based student Matea Cañizarez as the winner of the 11th annual Breakthrough Junior Challenge, a global competition that empowers young people to creatively communicate complex ideas in the life sciences, physics, and mathematics.

The Breakthrough Junior Challenge will provide $400,000 in educational awards to Matea and her teacher, Roberto Procel. As the student winner, Matea will be granted a $250,000 college scholarship. In recognition of his work as a science teacher, Mr. Procel will receive a $50,000 award. The prize package also includes a cutting-edge science laboratory, designed by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and valued at $100,000, to be installed at Colegio Johannes Kepler, Matea’s current school, located in Quito, Ecuador. 

Matea was honored alongside the 2026 Breakthrough Prize laureates at The Breakthrough Prize Ceremony in Los Angeles on April 18, 2026.

“It’s exhilarating to meet bright, curious young people like Matea,” said Julia Milner, co-founder of the Breakthrough Junior Challenge, “And to see them pursuing their passion for ideas and communicating it to others makes me truly hopeful for the future,” said Julia Milner, co-founder of the Breakthrough Prize.

Matea’s winning entry explains quark-gluon plasma, an extreme state of matter that existed just after the Big Bang, in which quarks and gluons move freely instead of being bound inside protons and neutrons. Her short video can be seen here. This was Matea’s first entry to the Breakthrough Junior Prize, and she is currently applying for college next fall.

“Coming from a rural town in Ecuador, my passion for science was not a given. I am humbled by the honor of winning the Breakthrough Junior Challenge and hope to work in the service of society and nature by making the most of this opportunity,” said Matea.

“Congratulations on your beautiful video explaining the quark-gluon plasma,” said David Gross, winner of the 2026 Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, whose theories led directly to the discovery of the phenomenon in Matea’s video. Gross continued, “Very exciting, very well done, and I hope you stay in physics and help us understand even better the properties of the quark-gluon plasma in the laboratory, in the early Universe, and perhaps in the core of neutron stars.”

The Breakthrough Junior Challenge is a global program designed to showcase and advance young people’s understanding of science and core scientific principles, spark enthusiasm for STEM fields, encourage pursuit of STEM careers, and engage the broader public in fundamental scientific concepts. Each year, students ages 13 to 18 are invited to produce original videos of up to two minutes that explain a concept or theory in life sciences, physics, or mathematics.

Entries are judged on how effectively participants communicate complex scientific ideas in clear, compelling, and creative ways.

“Seeing students take on complex topics and explain them with enthusiasm and creativity is inspiring,” said Sal Khan, founder and CEO of Khan Academy and Vision Steward of TED. “Their work is a reminder that when young people are given access and opportunity to explore their interests, they can achieve great things.”

This year, the Breakthrough Junior Challenge attracted more than 2,500 applicants from around the world. Submissions were narrowed down to 30 semifinalists, which represented the top submissions after two rounds of judging: first, a mandatory peer review, followed by an evaluation panel of judges. Sixteen finalists were selected in December 2025.

Celebrating its 11th year, the Breakthrough Junior Challenge has reached a global community of more than 100,000 students, parents, and educators, drawing upwards of 30,000 applications from students in over 200 countries, including Canada, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, the Philippines, Singapore, and the United States. Since its launch, the program has distributed more than $2.5 million in college scholarships, invested $1 million in state-of-the-art science laboratories, and awarded $500,000 to exceptional science and mathematics teachers. Winning submissions have explored subjects ranging from  Mechanogenetic Cellular Engineering, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, Circadian Rhythms, Neutrino Astronomy, and more. Challenge alumni have continued their academic journeys at top-tier universities such as MIT, Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford.

This year’s Selection Committee was comprised of: Thea Booysen, MsC, social media director for neurologist Dr. Richard Isaacson and founder of MadeByHuman; Rachel Crane, space and science correspondent, CNN; Pascale Ehrenfreund, PhD, president, Committee on Space Research COSPAR; Dennis Gaitsgory, professor, Max Planck Institute for Mathematics, and Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics Laureate; John Grunsfelt, PhD astronaut, associate administrator for science, chief scientist at NASA Headquarters; Mae Jemison, physician, former astronaut, entrepreneur; Jeffery W. Kelly, professor of chemistry, Scripps Research Institute and Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences laureate; Scott Kelly, retired NASA astronaut; Salman Khan, founder and CEO, Khan Academy; Ijad Madisch, CEO, co-founder, ResearchGate; Samaya Nissanke, University of Amsterdam, Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics laureate; Nicole Stott, NASA astronaut, and co-founder of the Space for Art Foundation; Andrew Strominger, professor of physics, Harvard University, and Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics laureate; Terence Tao, UCLA professor and Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics laureate; Esther Wojcicki, founder, Palo Alto High Media Arts Center; Richard Youle, National Institutes of Health, and Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences laureate; and S. Pete Worden, chairman, Breakthrough Prize Foundation.

Partners

The Breakthrough Junior Challenge
The Breakthrough Junior Challenge, co-founded by Julia and Yuri Milner, is a global science video competition, aiming to develop and demonstrate young people’s knowledge of science and scientific principles and communications skills; generate excitement in these fields; support STEM career choices; and engage the imagination and interest of the public-at-large in key concepts of fundamental science.

The Breakthrough Prize
The Breakthrough Prize, renowned as the “Oscars of Science,” recognizes the world’s top scientists. Each prize is $3 million and presented in the fields of Life Sciences, Fundamental Physics (one per year) and Mathematics (one per year). In addition, up to three New Horizons in Physics Prizes, up to three New Horizons in Mathematics Prizes and up to three Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prizes are given out to early-career researchers each year. Laureates attend a gala award ceremony designed to celebrate their achievements and inspire the next generation of scientists.

The Breakthrough Prizes were founded by Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, Julia and Yuri Milner, and Anne Wojcicki. The Prizes have been sponsored by the personal foundations established by Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, Julia and Yuri Milner and Anne Wojcicki. Selection Committees composed of previous Breakthrough Prize laureates in each field choose the winners. Information on the Breakthrough Prize is available at breakthroughprize.org.

About Khan Academy
Khan Academy is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere. Since 2008, Khan Academy has provided an education safety net, a free platform designed to provide global access to high-quality learning for students and free resources for teachers. Khan Academy partners with more than 600 school districts in the United States and works with school systems in countries around the world, providing tools that personalize education. Khan Academy is at the forefront of using AI in education to support students while ensuring educators remain at the heart of the classroom. Worldwide, more than 200 million registered learners have used Khan Academy in 190 countries and more than 50 languages. For more information, please see research findings about Khan Academy and our press center.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL)
The Breakthrough Prize Lab for the winning student’s school is designed in partnership with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL). Founded in 1890, CSHL, an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit, powers transformational discoveries in cancer, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, plant biology, and quantitative biology. Through world-renowned science and education divisions, CSHL nurtures a culture of curiosity, discovery, and innovation to make lives better. CSHL’s DNA Learning Center (DNALC) is the largest provider of hands-on instruction in genetics and biotechnology, reaching nearly 40,000 middle and high school students through field trips, day camps, summer camps, mentored research projects, and teacher training. For more than a century, CSHL has been a powerful and productive environment for developing, connecting, and sharing world-changing ideas. For more information, visit www.cshl.edu<http://www.cshl.edu/>>.

Contact
For more information, including competition rules, video submission guidelines and queries, go to: breakthroughjuniorchallenge.org.

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SOURCE Breakthrough Prize

LOS ANGELES, April 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Their discovery started with a group of blind dogs living at a vet school. Now, the work has been awarded the prestigious Breakthrough Prize at the “Oscars of Science.”

Today, Jean Bennett, MD, PHD, and Albert Maguire, MD, both emeritus professors of Ophthalmology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and Katherine High, MD, an emeritus professor of Pediatrics and the founding director of the Raymond G. Perelman Center for Cellular and Molecular Therapeutics at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), received the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for their work in developing the first FDA-approved gene therapy for an inherited condition, which dramatically improves sight in people with a form of blindness called Leber Congenital Amaurosis (LCA).

Their work blazed a trail for the more than 140 gene therapy trials for retinal conditions, including macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy, diseases that collectively impact about 30 million people in the US. Eighty more trials are currently underway.

“Even 20 years ago, treating people with gene therapy was seen by some as an impossibility,” said Jonathan Epstein, MD, dean of the Perelman School of Medicine and executive vice president of the University of Pennsylvania for the Health System. “But this group of incredible physician-scientists persisted and created something that is providing sight to people who would have been completely blind as early as kindergarten. Their belief in the power of life-changing science has led to breathtaking results and richly deserved global recognition.”

The Breakthrough Prizes are called the “Oscars of Science” for their high-profile celebration of research and support from celebrities spanning numerous areas of pop culture. Created in 2012 by Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, Yuri and Julia Milner, and Anne Wojcicki, the prizes are given out in five categories including Life Sciences, Fundamental Physics, and Math, each with an accompanying $3 million award.

This year’s accolade now means that nine Penn-affiliated researchers have received the Breakthrough Prize, tied for the most with Harvard University. The prior Penn Medicine award winners are Carl June, PhD (2024), Drew Weissman, MD, PhD, and Katalin Karikó, PhD (2022), and Virginia M.Y. Lee, PhD (2019). Additionally, Penn faculty members Charles Kane, PhD, and Eugene Mele, PhD, won the prize for Physics in 2019. Mathew Madhavacheril, PhD, an assistant professor of Physics and Astronomy in Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences, also received recognition at this year’s Breakthrough Prize ceremony when he was honored with the New Horizons in Physics award, given to researchers early in their careers.

“Science is rarely a straight path, and those who make the most profound discoveries are resilient and persistent, overcoming obstacles along the way,” said J. Larry Jameson, MD, PhD, president of the University of Pennsylvania. “That is exactly what I see in this year’s awardees, and it has been true of all our remarkable faculty who have been recognized for scientific breakthroughs. Whether they are discovering what lies beneath Alzheimer’s Disease, curing cancer by engineering a patients’ own immune cells, or reversing blindness—they have persisted with imagination and rigor. Their steadfastness has pushed the boundaries of what medicine can achieve.”

“Developing cell and gene therapies has long been a top priority for our organization,” said Madeline Bell, CHOP’s CEO. “This breakthrough is the result of decades of investment and collaboration, and reflects our commitment to translating scientific discoveries into therapies that will transform patients’ lives. It has paved the way for many more cell and gene therapy innovations and has given hope to families around the world.”

“They can see!”

Bennett and Maguire met and married during medical school in the 1980s. It was then that they both became intrigued by the concept of genetic therapy, the practice of replacing a mutated or faulty gene with a functional copy, and started dreaming of treating inherited forms of blindness with the technique, which at that time remained the stuff of science fiction.

It was “like thinking you wanted to go to the moon in 1950,” Maguire said many years later.

Both Bennett and Maguire joined Penn’s Scheie Eye Institute in the 1990s and began working on their ideas with lab mice. They learned that the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine housed a group of blind dogs who had a condition similar to the human disease: Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA). People born with a mutation on the RPE65 gene have poor vision starting at birth and often progress rapidly to complete blindness, usually by their 20s, but sometimes in early childhood.

The pair developed a therapy that used a virus as a transport, carrying a piece of DNA into cells that would then correct the faulty, blindness-causing proteins formed by the bad gene. The idea: Once the proteins were set right, some sight might return. First, they tested the therapy by injecting it into a single eye in each of three dogs.

It wasn’t long until they knew whether it worked. Bennett recalls receiving an excited phone call from a technician at the lab, who exclaimed, “They can see!”

Sure enough, the dogs were twirling around, using their treated eyes to see. Before treatment, the dogs had bumped and tripped through an obstacle course set up to test their sight. After the full treatment, the course was an easy task for the dogs.

A knock on the door

In parallel with Bennett and Maguire’s dreams of gene therapy, High was also working to bring the field forward. Like Bennett and Maguire, she had achieved long-term reversal of a serious genetic disease in a dog model: In her case, for hemophilia, a life-threatening bleeding disorder. High had advanced these studies from success in dogs to initial clinical trials in humans, delivering the donated gene into skeletal muscle and the liver.

The work was promising, but the human immune response to the gene delivery vessel—which was derived from a virus in the same way Bennett and Maguire’s therapy was—prevented sustained benefits from the therapeutic gene. At the same time, companies and investors, discouraged by high profile negative events, began to turn away from gene therapy. Progress stalled. 

But with support from CHOP, High founded the Raymond G. Perelman Center for Cellular and Molecular Therapeutics (CCMT) in 2004. She recruited experts in all aspects of clinical gene therapy, including specialized knowledge in the manufacturing and release of gene therapy vectors, which are the particles that deliver a healthy copy of a defective gene to patients.

After vector production was set up at CHOP, High went to Bennett’s office and knocked on the door with a proposition to start a clinical trial in humans. In 2007, Maguire, who was then a surgeon in Pediatric Ophthalmology at CHOP, administered an injection of the experimental therapy at CHOP into a clinical trial participant – a 26-year-old woman—for the first time. Her twin, with the same condition, received the treatment shortly after.

When the team assessed the treatment of the 37 eligible participants from the original clinical trials, 72 percent reported the maximum possible improvement in a test of low-light conditions, which simulates night vision. Amid these, many reported improved peripheral and central vision, too. One patient, who could only detect changes in light, was suddenly able to navigate walking through Philadelphia at night, unaided, and could make out the clock on City Hall. Another patient was able to see a star for the first time in her life just six days after the procedure.

In 2017, the therapy—by then manufactured by Spark Therapeutics, a spinout from CHOP, and called Luxturna—received approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It became the first FDA approval of a genetic therapy for an inherited disease. Today, hundreds of people around the world have successfully received the treatment.

A celebration of decades of work

Today’s celebration in Los Angeles marks a celebratory milestone in roughly 40 years of work led by Bennett, Maguire, and High that has inspired others in the now vibrant field of gene therapy. In fact, a treatment stemming from High’s original work with hemophilia received FDA approval in 2024.

“We always just did what we thought you were supposed to do if you were a doctor: Find treatments for diseases,” said Maguire. “Both my father and Jean’s worked in science, and it seemed normal to try to push the envelope.”

“I think the only surprise for us was that things worked out so well,” Bennett said. “For every success, there are usually so many failures. That’s just the nature of science. But our team hit on something that has helped so many people and helped progress the field, and we’re really grateful for our part in that.”

High described the journey between the start of her collaboration with Bennett and Maguire in 2005 and the FDA approval in 2017 as “an arduous one.”

“At times, it seemed that the number of obstacles we needed to overcome to reach regulatory approval was never-ending,” High said. “Working without the benefit of the guidelines and precedents we now have today, we sought to solve each day’s problems so that the program would have a tomorrow. It was a bold and uncertain investment of time, effort, and resources. Few were willing to take on the risks, but it ultimately paid off, and it helped build the foundation of modern gene therapy.”

About Penn Medicine:
Penn Medicine is one of the world’s leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, excellence in patient care, and community service.

The organization consists of the University of Pennsylvania Health System and Penn’s Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine, founded in 1765 as the nation’s first medical school.

The Perelman School of Medicine is consistently among the nation’s top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with more than $588 million awarded in the 2024 fiscal year. Home to a proud history of “firsts,” Penn Medicine teams have pioneered discoveries that have shaped modern medicine, including CAR T cell therapy for cancer and the Nobel Prize-winning mRNA technology used in COVID-19 vaccines.

The University of Pennsylvania Health System cares for patients in facilities and their homes stretching from the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania to the New Jersey shore. UPHS facilities include the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Chester County Hospital, Doylestown Health, Lancaster General Health, Princeton Health, and Pennsylvania Hospital—the nation’s first hospital, chartered in 1751. Additional facilities and enterprises include Penn Medicine at Home, GSPP Rehabilitation, Lancaster Behavioral Health Hospital, and Princeton House Behavioral Health, among others.

Penn Medicine is a $13.7 billion enterprise powered by more than 50,000 talented faculty and staff.

About Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia:
A non-profit, charitable organization, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia was founded in 1855 as the nation’s first pediatric hospital. Through its long-standing commitment to providing exceptional patient care, training new generations of pediatric healthcare professionals, and pioneering major research initiatives, the hospital has fostered many discoveries that have benefited children worldwide. Its pediatric research program is among the largest in the country. The institution has a well-established history of providing advanced pediatric care close to home through its CHOP Care Network, which includes more than 50 primary care practices, specialty care and surgical centers, urgent care centers, and community hospital alliances throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey. CHOP also operates the Middleman Family Pavilion and its dedicated pediatric emergency department in King of Prussia, the Behavioral Health and Crisis Center (including a 24/7 Crisis Response Center) and the Center for Advanced Behavioral Healthcare, a mental health outpatient facility. Its unique family-centered care and public service programs have brought Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia recognition as a leading advocate for children and adolescents. For more information, visit www.chop.edu. 

Media Contacts:

CHOP PR Contact:
Ashley Moore
Moorea1@chop.edu
267-426-6071

Penn Medicine PR Contact:
Frank Otto
Frank.Otto@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
267-693-2999

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SOURCE Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia