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Uploaded: Thursday, February 21, 2013, 10:46 AM
Nonprofit including Zuckerberg, Brin gives $33 million in prizes
Money awards breakthrough research in life sciences
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by Eric Van Susteren
Palo Alto Online Staff
A group of executives that includes local names such as Mark Zuckerberg, Sergei Brin and Anne Wojcicki awarded $33 million in prizes to recognize research in life science aimed at curing disease and lengthening human life.
The group, which awarded 11 researchers $3 million each, makes up the board of directors of a new nonprofit called the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Foundation, according to a statement from the foundation.
Winners came from institutions such as the Hubrecht Institute, Weill Cornell Medical College and Princeton University. They made discoveries in cancer genomics, mechanisms of angiogenesis that led to therapies for cancer and eye disease, and research on telomeres.
"We are thrilled to support scientists who think big, take risks and have made a significant impact on our lives. These scientists should be household names and heroes in society," said Wojcicki, the co-founder of Mountain View-based 23andme, which provides individualized genetic testing.
The board also includes Zuckerberg's wife, Priscilla Chan; Art Levinson, member of the boards of directors for Apple and Genentech; and Yuri Milner, the founder of Mail.ru.
In the future, the foundation will award five annual prizes of $3 million each to winners who are chosen by a selection board that includes the previous year's winners.
The foundation touted its "transparent selection process" in which anyone will be able to nominate a candidate online. Also, prizes can be shared between any number of deserving scientists and can be received more than once, and there will be no age restrictions for nominees.
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Posted by juniperk, a resident of the Gemello neighborhood, on Feb 21, 2013 at 2:53 pm so , no award for anyone who wrote useless piece of code at facebook and Google?
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Posted by Martin Omander, a resident of the Rex Manor neighborhood, on Feb 21, 2013 at 3:00 pm You can see the list of prize recipients on the foundation's website: Web Link
Looks like the second round of awards will be open for public nominations.
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Posted by Concerned Citizen, a resident of the North Whisman neighborhood, on Feb 21, 2013 at 3:09 pm Is this a good way for rich people to spend their money? To extend their lives and possibly live forever? We live in the strangest of times. Half the world's population has barely anything to subsist on while the elites get together to figure out how to become immortal! Make no mistake, living forever, settling on Mars, becoming one with the machine, etc. are all rich peoples' fantasies. Meanwhile mother Earth is having a fever that is not about to go away anytime soon. Why don't they spend some of their money to slow down climate change?
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Posted by Sabrina, a resident of the The Crossings neighborhood, on Feb 21, 2013 at 7:52 pm "Is this a good way for rich people to spend their money? To extend their lives and possibly live forever? We live in the strangest of times. Half the world's population has barely anything to subsist on while the elites get together to figure out how to become immortal! Make no mistake, living forever, settling on Mars, becoming one with the machine, etc. are all rich peoples' fantasies. Meanwhile mother Earth is having a fever that is not about to go away anytime soon. Why don't they spend some of their money to slow down climate change?"
Well said! I agree completely. These people have no concern for the world's many poor (who are already, and will continue to be, climate change's greatest victims). At least Bill Gates has the right idea in trying to cure malaria.
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Posted by Wo\'O Ideafarm, a resident of another community, on Feb 21, 2013 at 7:58 pm
Wo\'O Ideafarm is a member (registered user) of Mountain View Online IMO, this is insanity. The boundary of death is only significant to a person who does not understand life. It is natural to care for one's body, to hope for a long life, and to try to live in a way that will yield that result. But today's obsession with drugs and heart transplant class operations is a perversion that is produced by the same "thought steering industry" that whips up selfishness in all of its contemporary manifestations.
"DO NOT FEAR THAT YOU WILL DIE. FEAR THAT YOU MIGHT NEVER LIVE"
The selfish person grasps at immortality but does not ever live at all. Selfishness is existence but not LIFE. To be truly, fully alive, you must never stop falling ever more deeply in love. It is the state of being totally in love that is life.
The unselfish person is so fully connected, wholesomely, to other people, to Higher Power, and to the Earth, that the boundaries between self and other, including the boundary of death, is of no significance. The unselfish person is not only fully alive, but is immortal, in the sense that the unselfish person identifies with and cares about the children and those yet to be born just as much as he or she cares about self.
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