The most glitzy event on the scientific calendar took place on Sunday night when the Breakthrough Foundation gave away $22m (£16.3m) in prizes to dozens of physicists, biologists and mathematicians at a ceremony in Silicon Valley.

Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics

(The $3 million physics prize will be shared between the entire 27 member WMAP experimental team, with the largest share going to the following five team leaders)

- Chuck L. Bennett, Johns Hopkins University
- Gary Hinshaw, Univ. of British Columbia
- Norman Jarosik, Princeton University
- Lyman Page, Jr., Princeton University
- David N. Spergel, Princeton University

For detailed maps of the early universe that greatly improved our knowledge of the evolution of the cosmos and the fluctuations that seeded the formation of galaxies.

Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences

(Each of the five Life Science winners will receive a $3 million prize.)

- Don Cleveland, University of California San Diego

For elucidating the molecular pathogenesis of a type of inherited ALS, including the role of glia in neurodegeneration, and for establishing antisense oligonucleotide therapy in animal models of ALS and Huntington disease.

- Joanne Chory, Salk Institute for Biological Studies & Howard Hughes Medical Institute

For discovering the molecular mechanisms by which plants extract information from light and shade to modify their programs of shoot and leaf growth in the photosynthetic harvest of light.

- Kim Nasmyth, University of Oxford

For elucidating the sophisticated mechanism that mediates the perilous separation of duplicated chromosomes during cell division and thereby prevents genetic diseases such as cancer.

- Peter Walter, UC San Francisco

For elucidating the unfolded protein response, a cellular quality-control system that detects disease-causing unfolded proteins and directs cells to take corrective measures.

- Kazutoshi Mori, Kyoto University

Also, for elucidating the unfolded protein response, a cellular quality-control system that detects disease-causing unfolded proteins and directs cells to take corrective measures.

Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics

(The 2 mathematics winners will share a $3 million prize)

- Christopher Hacon, University of Utah
- James McKernan, UC San Diego

For transformational contributions to birational algebraic geometry, especially to the minimal model program in all dimensions.