Today's perspective
Reporter Liu Xia
The Breakthrough Award, known as the "Oscar" of the scientific community, was unveiled on October 17 in San Francisco, USA, as the most generous prize in the science and mathematics community, and the recipients of each award received a prize of 3 million US dollars in recognition of their achievements in the life sciences, physics and mathematics, of which Chinese scientists Zhuang Xiaowei and Chen Zhijian won two awards in the field of biology.
This year, the award includes 4 life sciences awards, 1 basic physics award, 1 mathematics prize and 1 special prize. The 9 winners included 6 men and 3 women. Among them, 4 researchers shared two awards, and the remaining 5 researchers each received the full prize money. Another 12 researchers received six $100,000 awards for their early career performance.
"Super resolution" microscopy was the winner
According to the British "Nature" magazine reported on the 17th, in this year's "Breakthrough Award", the award in the field of life sciences was awarded to 5 scientists.
Xiaowei Zhuang, a biophysicist at Harvard University and a researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), has developed a "super-resolution" microscopy that reveals the hidden molecular structure of cells, the Random Optical Reconstruction Microscopy (STORM), with a $3 million prize. More than a decade ago, Zhuang Xiaowei was awarded one of the four major awards in the field of life sciences for developing this technology.
Zhuang Xiaowei creatively applied fluorescence spectroscopy and microscopic analysis techniques to individual molecules, a new physical approach that makes it possible to reveal in real time individual molecules and their motility steps in complex biological processes. This technique was one of the first to break the basic resolution limitations of conventional optical microscopes and has been widely used in biology.
This technology has led to a large number of discoveries. Among them, Zhuang Xiaowei's team used STORM to observe molecules located under the membranes of neurons and found that the cytoskeleton (the structural framework of cells) consists of repetitive structures. Zhuang Xiaowei said: "This is a beautiful and surprising structure. ”
Since then, she has developed another imaging technique, hoping to eventually create a "Google Map" of every cell in our body, especially the brain cells.
Zhuang Xiaowei said: "It is very rewarding to receive this major award, and I am very happy to receive a call. ”
Arad Mosk, an optical physicist and microscopist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, said: "This is a wonderful study, and the results of Zhuang Xiaowei's research have contributed to the beginning of the ultra-high resolution revolution in biological microscopy. ”
In 2014, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to developers of other super-resolution methods.
Other winners in the field of biological sciences include Frank Bennett of Ionics Pharmaceuticals in California and Adrian Kleiner of cold spring harbor laboratories in New York, who have developed a method that silences genes that cause neurodegenerative spinal muscular atrophy in children; and Angelica Amon from MIT and HHMI, who identified how abnormal chromosomes disrupt cell repair (which can lead to consequences such as Down syndrome or miscarriage).
HHMI researcher Zhijian Chen of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center discovered cGAS, an enzyme that senses DNA, which is involved in triggering immune and autoimmune responses.
Fundamental Physics Award "Flower Fall" Topological Insulator
The Breakthrough Prize in the field of fundamental physics was awarded to Charles Kane and Eugene Merlin of the University of Pennsylvania for predicting the existence of a peculiar material known as a topological insulator. The interior of these materials is electrically insulatorized, but the surface can conduct electricity. The researchers say the material could one day be used to make more energy-efficient electronic devices and quantum computers.
In 2005, Kane recalled, he tried to calculate the possible mass of graphene, a single-atom-thick carbon material, and theoretically predicted that there might be counterintuitive effects. However, the effect of the prediction is too small to be confirmed experimentally on graphene. Kane admits that he almost gave up on the idea. He said: "There was a voice in my head, 'This is stupid'. But in 2007, this effect was confirmed by other researchers in cadmium telluride, and it has since been found in many materials. Kane said: "I'm glad I stuck with it. ”
Judy Cha, an expert on topological insulators at Yale University, said: "Kane and Merlin rewrote condensed matter physics. When the material was discovered, she recalled, "the whole physics community boiled over."
Vincent Laverg of the French National Center for Scientific Research received the Breakthrough Prize in mathematics for his outstanding contribution to the "Langlands Project". The Langlands Project is often seen as a "grand unified mathematical theory" that involves deriving a series of conjectures that relate algebra, number theory, and analysis.
This year's annual awards come after the committee announced in September that Astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Bonell of Oxford and Durham University had received a "special prize" for her discovery of pulsars. In 1967, Bell, who was still a graduate student at the University of Cambridge, used an improved radio telescope to observe a star that emits periodic radio waves, a rotating neutron star that was later named a pulsar. Bell's mentors, Anthony Hewish and Martin Lyell, won the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics, but she herself did not make the list.
The Breakthrough Award was co-founded in 2012 by Russian Internet entrepreneur Yuri Milner, Google founder Sergei Brin, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and others, and Ma Huateng, chairman of the board of directors of China Tencent, is also a founding donor of the award.
At the annual award ceremony, celebrities from all walks of life such as film and television, sports and scientists walk the red carpet together, in line with the purpose of the establishment of the "Breakthrough Award": to let scientists enjoy the star-like treatment and become idols of teenagers, which also makes the award win the reputation of "Oscar of the scientific community".
This year, the Breakthrough Awards ceremony will be held in November at NASA Research Center, hosted by British actor Pierce Brosnan, who played "007."
(Science and Technology Daily, Beijing, October 18)
(Editor-in-Charge: Robert)
