The ‘Oscars of Science’ carry on, without superstar presenters (yet)

This year’s Breakthrough Prizes honor luminaries in life sciences, mathematics, and physics. Here are the four life sciences winners, who will each receive $3 million, and perhaps attend a glitzy gala postponed until March with superstars of movies, music, sports, and tech entrepreneurship.

• David Baker, University of Washington and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, for developing tools to unravel protein folding and design novel proteins.
• Catherine Dulac, Harvard University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, for mapping the neural pathways governing parenting behavior to the level of specific brain cells.
• Yuk Ming Dennis Lo, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, for discovering that fetal DNA is present in maternal blood and can be used for the prenatal testing of genetic disorders.
• Richard Youle, National Institutes of Health, for revealing a cellular pathway that clears damaged mitochondria and protects against Parkinson’s disease.