$3 Million for Discovery: The Groundbreaking Winners of the 2025 Breakthrough Prize

At the spectacular Breakthrough Prize ceremony held on April 5, 2025, at Santa Monica’s Barker Hangar, six awards of $3 million each—significantly exceeding the Nobel Prize in monetary value—were bestowed upon scientists who have fundamentally transformed our understanding of life, physics, and mathematics. These extraordinary researchers, honored at an event often called the “Oscars of Science,” represent the pinnacle of human curiosity and intellectual achievement.

Revolutionary Advances in Life Sciences

The Life Sciences category featured three separate $3 million prizes for transformative medical research. The first went to a team of five scientists—Daniel J. Drucker, Joel Habener, Jens Juul Holst, Lotte Bjerre Knudsen, and Svetlana Mojsov—whose complementary contributions led to highly effective treatments for diabetes and obesity, conditions affecting hundreds of millions worldwide.

Their collective work mapped the complete journey of GLP-1 medicines from basic discovery through clinical application. Their breakthroughs included identifying the gene encoding the GLP-1 hormone, demonstrating its production in the gut and its role in stimulating insulin, developing more stable versions of the hormone, and ultimately creating a new class of drugs transforming metabolic disease treatment.

Stephen L. Hauser and Alberto Ascherio shared another Life Sciences prize for revolutionizing our understanding and treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS). Hauser overturned the scientific consensus on MS mechanisms by identifying B cells as the primary drivers of nerve damage, while Ascherio discovered that infection with the Epstein-Barr virus raises the risk of developing MS by a factor of 32—potentially opening the door to preventative vaccines.

The third Life Sciences prize went to David R. Liu for developing two powerful gene-editing technologies that correct mutations causing genetic diseases without cutting the DNA double helix. His lab’s base editing and prime editing technologies have already been distributed to over 20,000 labs worldwide, resulting in thousands of advances in research, agriculture, and medicine. Clinical trials in five countries have shown life-saving results for conditions ranging from sickle cell disease to high cholesterol.

“The breakthroughs being recognized this year are extraordinary,” noted Anne Wojcicki, Breakthrough Prize co-founder. “Including, in my own field, amazing gene-editing technologies that are already having a big impact.”

Collective Achievement in Fundamental Physics

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this year’s ceremony was the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, awarded not to an individual but to over 13,500 researchers representing four experimental collaborations at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This unprecedented recognition of collective scientific effort acknowledges researchers from more than 70 countries working on the ATLAS, CMS, ALICE, and LHCb experiments.

The four collaborations were honored for their precise measurements of the Higgs boson, discoveries of new particles, studies of matter-antimatter asymmetry, and exploration of nature at its most fundamental level. Their work has pushed the boundaries of human understanding of the physical world to unprecedented limits.

In a powerful demonstration of scientific altruism, the $3 million prize will be donated to the CERN & Society Foundation to fund doctoral students’ research experiences, extending the impact of the award to future generations of physicists. This approach aligns perfectly with the vision articulated in Yuri Milner’s Eureka Manifesto, which emphasizes investing in fundamental science and fostering universal contribution to knowledge.

Mathematical Brilliance Recognized

The Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics went to Dennis Gaitsgory for his central role in proving the geometric Langlands conjecture, one of mathematics’ most challenging puzzles. After dedicating 30 years to this problem, Gaitsgory and his colleagues published an 800-page proof spanning five papers in 2024.

The Langlands program connects seemingly unrelated mathematical concepts, with implications extending to number theory, algebraic geometry, and mathematical physics. Gaitsgory’s achievement represents the kind of long-term, fundamental research that the Breakthrough Prize was designed to celebrate—work that may not make headlines but advances human knowledge in profound ways.

Nurturing Future Scientific Talent

Beyond the main prizes, the ceremony highlighted the Breakthrough Prize Foundation’s commitment to developing the next generation of scientists. Six $100,000 New Horizons Prizes were awarded to early-career physicists and mathematicians, while three $50,000 Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prizes went to outstanding women mathematicians who recently completed their PhDs.

This tiered approach complements other initiatives founded by Yuri Milner, particularly the Breakthrough Junior Challenge, which engages teenagers worldwide in communicating complex scientific concepts through creative videos. Together, these programs create a comprehensive ecosystem supporting scientific talent at all stages of development.

The 2025 New Horizons winners included researchers advancing fields like quantum gas microscopy, fracton models, and extreme adaptive optics for detecting exoplanets. The Maryam Mirzakhani Prize recipients made strides in areas ranging from the Langlands program to quantum computing algorithms—demonstrating the breadth and depth of emerging mathematical talent.

The Broader Impact of Recognition

“This year’s Breakthrough Prize laureates have made amazing strides—including treatments for major diseases affecting millions of people worldwide—showing once again the transformative power of curiosity-driven basic science,” remarked Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg in their statement about the awards.

The recognition provided by the Breakthrough Prize goes beyond the substantial monetary awards. By celebrating these achievements in a high-profile ceremony alongside cultural luminaries, the prize elevates the status of scientists in public consciousness and inspires others to follow similar paths of discovery.

This approach connects directly to the Breakthrough Initiatives, Yuri Milner’s ambitious space science programs investigating life in the universe. Both efforts share a common vision: advancing human knowledge through bold exploration and recognition of excellence.

“The questions these laureates are asking are among the deepest questions there are—about the workings of life, the nature of the Universe and the abstract landscapes of mathematics,” Yuri Milner noted. “It’s inspiring to see scientists seeking and finding answers to these questions.”

As these remarkable winners return to their laboratories and research institutions with both substantial funding and enhanced visibility, their work continues to expand the frontiers of human knowledge—opening new possibilities for addressing disease, understanding our physical world, and unveiling the elegant mathematical structures that underlie reality itself.