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Eric Lander, the Ó³»­´«Ã½â€™s president and founding director, is among 11 recipients of the first Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, an award that recognizes excellence in research aimed at curing intractable diseases and extending human life. Founding sponsors of the Breakthrough Prize include Sergey Brin, Anne Wojcicki, Mark Zuckerberg, and Yuri Milner. Art Levinson will serve as the Chairman of the Board of the Foundation administering the prize.

According to today’s prize announcement, Lander was selected for the discovery of general principles for identifying human disease genes, and enabling their application to medicine through pioneering work to create and analyze genetic, physical and sequence maps of the human genome.

Other recipients of this year’s prize include David Botstein of Princeton University, Charles Sawyers of Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and a member of the Ó³»­´«Ã½â€™s Board of Scientific Counselors, Robert Weinberg of MIT and the Whitehead Institute and an associate member of the Ó³»­´«Ã½, and many other esteemed scientists who have advanced the field of life sciences (a full list of the names and brief descriptions of each of the prize winners is available ).

Lander and the other recipients of this year’s prize will join the Selection Committee for future awardees. Going forward, anyone will be able to nominate candidates for consideration for the Breakthrough Prize, which can be shared by any number of deserving scientists, regardless of age or having received the award previously.

All Breakthrough Prize recipients will have the opportunity to present a public talk for a general audience. These lectures will be made available to the public. We’ll share more information about the talks as details become available.