Dec 16, 2013 09:58 AM EST By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

The Breakthrough Prize in Life Science honored its second group of distinguished individuals last Thursday at NASA's Ames Research center in Mountain View, California, SF Gate reported. Awards go to those who demonstrate "excellence in research aimed at curing intractable diseases and extending life," according to the event's website.

A somewhat odd collection of billionaires oversees the ceremony, all of whom are linked not by the life sciences but by computer technology (and two of whom are married). There is Facebook founder Mark Zukerberg (along with his wife, Priscilla Chan) and Google CEO Sergey Brin. Calico CEO (affiliated with Google) Art Levinson, who established himself as a research scientist and eventual CEO of Genetech, is also on the board, followed by venture capitalist Yuri Milner, who made a good portion of his billions investing in technology, and Ann Wojcicki, founder of the private genetics company, 23andMe, and perhaps the least connected with computer science, unless you count her 2007 marriage to Brin.

But each of the board members, most famously Zukerberg and Brin, has invested in pursuits beyond their expertise. Indeed, the aim of the awards and its affiliated non-profit the group founded in 2012 is to provide recipients with "more freedom and opportunity to pursue even greater future accomplishments" and "generate excitement about the pursuit of science as a career," according to the website.

"More freedom and opportunity" is represented by a $3 million cash prize for every recipient, of which there are six in a typical year. (Last year's inaugural ceremony awarded 11 individuals). In what SF Gate called a black tie, red carpet affair rivaling that of the Oscars, host Kevin Spacey introduced the six winners, as reported by SF Gate:

1.    James Allison, Anderson Cancer Center - breakthrough in cancer therapy.

2.    Mahlon Deong, Emery University - breakthrough in Parkinson's disease.

3.    Michael Hall, University of Basel - discovered and described a new protein.

4.    Robert Langer, MIT -- controlled drug-release systems and new biomaterials.

5.    Richard Lifton, Yale University - breakthrough in understanding hypertension.

6.    Alexander Varshavsky, California Institute of Technology - intracellular protein degradation.

"Albert Einstein was celebrated as a kind of scientific rock star before there were actual rock stars," said Mark Zuckerberg during the ceremony."This event is our effort to put the spotlight on those whose work will change lives for generations to come."

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