David Botstein wins Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences

The 2013 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences was awarded to David Botstein, the Anthony B. Evnin ’62 Professor of Genomics.

David Botstein

David Botstein (Photo by Denise Applewhite)

The $3 million prize acknowledges achievements in research aimed at “curing intractable diseases and extending human life,” according to the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Foundation. Botstein was honored for his “linkage mapping of Mendelian disease in humans using DNA polymorphisms.”

Botstein’s current research focuses include cell metabolism and gene expression. He is perhaps best known for proposing a gene-mapping technique with three other researchers that laid the groundwork for the Human Genome Project, a technique that Princeton President Emerita Shirley M. Tilghman described as “the beginning of modern human genetics.”

Sponsors of the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences include Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan, Anne Wojcicki and Yuri Milner.