The 'Oscars of science' honored the teams curing blindness, sickle cell, and worse

Tonight in Los Angeles, the Breakthrough Prize Foundation named its 2026 laureates — six $3 million prizes for scientists whose work is already changing lives. A husband-and-wife team, Jean Bennett and Albert Maguire, with Katherine High, created the first gene therapy approved for inherited blindness: children born with a rare retinal disease that used to mean total blindness by early adulthood can now see well enough to attend regular schools — and in some cases even earn driver's licenses. Stuart Orkin and Swee Lay Thein unlocked the first CRISPR-based medicine ever approved for any disease: a potentially one-time cure for sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia, which affect millions worldwide. And Rosa Rademakers and Bryan Traynor cracked the most common genetic cause of ALS and frontotemporal dementia, giving affected families long-sought answers — and opening paths to at least two therapies already in clinical trials.