Boston scientists win big at Breakthrough Prizes, dubbed science's Oscars
Four Boston-area researchers were honored at the 2026 Breakthrough Prize ceremonies: Stuart Orkin and Lee Roberts received Breakthrough Prizes of $3 million each for gene editing and muon physics, while Dillon Brout (Boston University) and Shu-Heng Shao (MIT) were New Horizon Prize recipients, each $100,000, for cosmology and generalized symmetries in quantum field theory. The awards, called the 'Oscars of Science' and cofounded by Zuckerberg and Chan, celebrate long-term breakthroughs—from sickle cell gene-editing therapies to precision cosmology data and new physics ideas.
