A neurogeneticist whose work at Mayo Clinic in Florida led to a key finding in neurodegenerative disease has won an international award for her research, Mayo announced in an April 20 news release.
Dr. Rosa Rademakers received the 2026 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for her role in discovering a genetic mutation that significantly increased researchers’ understanding of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, the release said.
The Breakthrough Prize describes itself as the world’s largest science prize and calls itself the “Oscars of Science,” according to breakthroughprize.org. The award recognizes the world’s top scientists in the fields of life sciences, fundamental physics and mathematics. In addition, prizes are awarded to early-career researchers.
The New York-based Breakthrough Prize Foundation presents the award. Facebook founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is part of the organization’s four-member board, according to its website.
Each prize is $3 million, and recipients are honored at an annual ceremony broadcast globally.
Rademakers’ discovery, published in 2011 alongside complementary work by a separate research team led by Dr. Bryan Traynor at the National Institute on Aging, revealed for the first time that FTD and ALS, long studied as separate diseases, shared a common genetic origin.
The discovery provided answers for people and families affected by inherited forms of ALS and FTD, enabling more accurate diagnosis, informing genetic counseling and accelerating research on targeted therapies, according to the release.
“The Breakthrough Prize is a powerful affirmation that the work happening at Mayo Clinic is changing the trajectory of human health,” Dr. Vijay Shah, Kinney executive dean of research at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, said in the release.
“This global recognition underscores the importance of relentless curiosity, scientific rigor and a commitment to improving lives.”
Rademakers worked from 2005 to 2019 on the Mayo Clinic faculty and continues to serve as a supplemental consultant in the Department of Neurosciences. She currently is director of the VIB Center for Molecular Neurology at the University of Antwerp in Belgium.
Mayo Clinic in Florida’s campus is at 4500 San Pablo Road S. at northwest San Pablo Road and Butler Boulevard.