Science Breakthroughs of the Year - Shortlist 2026
Congratulations to our Science Breakthrough of the Year 2026 shortlist! Across Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, Engineering and Technology, Social Sciences and Humanities, and Art and Science, these pioneering projects are breaking down walls between science and society.
- Adam Wollman, Newcastle University, Breaking the Wall of Accessible Space Biology
- Alen Juginovic, Harvard Medical School, Breaking the Wall of Sleep's Hidden Costs
- Ardian Jusufi, University of Zurich, Breaking the Wall of Reflexes and Preflexes
- Brian Hie, Stanford University, Breaking the Wall of AI-Engineered Phages
- Christoph Kuppe, RWTH Aachen University, Breaking the Wall of Diseased Heart Cell States
- Eric Appel, Stanford University, Breaking the Wall of Global Access for Biologic Drugs
- Frank Holz, University of Bonn, Breaking the Wall of Vision Loss by a Retina Implant
- Federico Tessari, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Breaking the Wall of Movement Complexity
- Georg Schett, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Breaking the Wall of Autoimmune Diseases
- Giacomo Valle, Chalmers University of Technology, Breaking the Wall of Lost Touch and Movement
- Gregory Corder, University of Pennsylvania, Breaking the Wall of Non-Addictive Pain Relief
- Haibo Zhang, Stanford University, Breaking the Wall of Pathogen-Specific Vaccines
- Henning Jacobsen, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Breaking the Wall of Short-Lived Vaccine Protection
- Jakob N. Kather, Else Kröner Fresenius Center (EKFZ) for Digital Health / TUD Dresden University of Technology, Breaking the Wall of Trustworthy AI in Cancer Care
- Jens Kurreck, Technische Universität Berlin, Breaking the Wall of Animal-Free Human Biomedicine
- Jose Andrés, Cornell University, Breaking the Wall of Monitoring Invisible Biodiversity
- Juan Manuel Iglesias Artola, Blue Ice Labs GmbH, Breaking the Wall of Invisible Lipid Transport in Cells
- Lim Jue Tao, Nanyang Technological University, Breaking the Wall of Urban Dengue Spread
- Mark Brönstrup, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Breaking the Wall of Deadly Bacterial Infections
- Meriem Messaoudene, University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre (CRCHUM), Breaking the Wall of Microbiome-Guided Cancer Care
- Merlin Crossley, University of New South Wales, Breaking the Wall of Mutation-Free Gene Therapy
- Monther Abu-Remaileh, Stanford University, Breaking the Wall of Lysosomal Brain Disease
- Moritz Gerstung, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Breaking the Wall of Predictive Medicine
- Nguyen Thi Hoa Huyen, VinUniversity, Breaking the Wall of Inequity in Cancer Care
- Patrick Ming Kuen Tang, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Breaking the Wall of Ineffective Solid Tumor Therapy
- Paula Cohen, Cornell University, Breaking the Wall of Reversible Male Contraception
- Philipp Holliger, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Breaking the Wall of RNA Self-Replication
- Wang Ming, Chinese Academy of Science, Breaking the Wall of Precise Protein Degradation
- Yimon Aye, University of Oxford, Breaking the Wall of Nature’s Drug Codes
- Zhiyong Lou, Tsinghua University, Breaking the Wall of Viral Infection and Defense
- Andrea Alù, City University of New York, Breaking the Wall of Light-Matter Interactions
- Anjana Devanand, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Breaking the Wall of Conventional Drought Thinking
- Ching-Wu Chu, University of Houston, Breaking the Wall of Ubiquitous Superconductivity Use
- Christian Smorra, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Breaking the Wall of Antiproton Transportation
- David Awschalom, University of Chicago, Breaking the Wall of Quantum with Molecules & Proteins
- Eric Hudson, University of California, Los Angeles, Breaking the Wall of Nuclear Quantum Control
- Ho-kwang Mao, Shanghai Advanced Research in Physical Sciences (SHARPS), Breaking the Wall of Metallic Hydrogen "Holy Grail"
- Hua Zhang, City University of Hong Kong, Breaking the Wall of Face-Centered Cubic Gold
- Igor Roncevic, The University of Manchester, Breaking the Wall of Molecular Design Using Topology
- Ilya Belopolski, Nanyang Technological University, Breaking the Wall of Semimetal Electronics
- James Quach, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Breaking the Wall of Quantum Batteries
- Kathrin Valerius, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Breaking the Wall of the Invisible Neutrino's Mass
- Konrad Meister, Boise State University & Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Breaking the Wall of Ice Making
- Kristel Chanard, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris & Université Paris Cité, Breaking the Wall of Climate and Solid Earth Interactions
- Lothar Maisenbacher, University of California, Berkeley, Breaking the Wall of the Proton Radius Puzzle
- Markus Arndt, University of Vienna, Breaking the Wall of Quantum Interferometry
- Michelle Simmons, Silicon Quantum Computing (SQC), Breaking the Wall of Quantum Simulation: Quantum Twins
- Ming Joo Koh, National University of Singapore, Breaking the Wall of Sugar Synthesis for Sustainability
- Peter Richard Schreiner, Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, Breaking the Wall of Chemical Energy Storage
- Silke Bühler-Paschen, Technische Universität Wien, Breaking the Wall of Topology and Strange Metals
- Stefan Ulmer, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Breaking the Wall of Single Antiproton Spin Spectroscopy
- Stefanie Dehnen, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Breaking the Wall of Size Ranges in Materials
- Sven Sturm, Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, Breaking the Wall of Precision Molecular Spectroscopy
- Sylvain Gigan, Sorbonne Université, Breaking the Wall of Biological Opacity
- Tilman Pfau, University of Stuttgart, Breaking the Wall of Novel Qubits for Atom Quantum Computing
- Tom Wu, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Breaking the Wall of Optoelectronic Energy Conversion
- Victor Mougel, ETH Zurich, Breaking the Wall of Bio-Inspired Rare Earth Recovery
- Xiangfeng Duan, University of California, Los Angeles, Breaking the Wall of Quantum Materials Design
- Xiaogang Liu, National University of Singapore, Breaking the Wall of Optical Nonlinearity
- Zhichuan J. Xu, Nanyang Technological University, Breaking the Wall of Electron Spin in Catalysis
- Akshayakumar Kompa, Institution for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), Breaking the Wall of Bioplastics
- Amir Safavi-Naeini, Stanford University, Breaking the Wall of Optical Amplification
- Case van Genuchten, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, Breaking the Wall of Upcycling Toxic Arsenic Waste
- Chibueze Amanchukwu, University of Chicago, Breaking the Wall of Forever Chemical Pollution
- Dangyuan Lei, City University of Hong Kong, Breaking the Wall of Printing Transparent Materials
- David Scheschkewitz, Saarland University, Breaking the Wall of Catalyst Instability
- Feng Gao, Linköping University, Breaking the Wall of Photovoltaic Circular Economy
- Guoan Zheng, University of Connecticut, Breaking the Wall of Imaging Without Lenses
- Haoran Ren, Monash University, Breaking the Wall of Multidimensional Light Control
- Hong Chen, Washington University in St. Louis, Breaking the Wall of Artificial Hibernation
- Jianhua Hao, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Breaking the Wall of Smart Photonics for Multimodal AI
- Jingyuan Xu, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Breaking the Wall of Refrigerant-Based Cooling
- Mahmoud Jalali Mehrabad, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Breaking the Wall of the Photonics Yield Crisis
- Martín Fañanás Mastral, Center for Research in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Materials (CiQUS), Breaking the Wall of Methane Valorization
- Mingchao Liu, University of Birmingham, Breaking the Wall of Adaptive Mechanical Metamaterials
- Mohammad Samizadeh Nikoo, Nanyang Technological University, Breaking the Wall of Terahertz Electronics
- Nejila Parspour, University of Stuttgart, Breaking the Wall of Wireless Power Limits
- Sasan Jalili, The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, University of Connecticut Health Center, Breaking the Wall of Invasive Tissue Biopsies
- Shiming Zhang, The University of Hong Kong, Breaking the Wall of Living Electronics
- Simone Gasparinetti, Chalmers University of Technology, Breaking the Wall of Thermodynamic Quantum Control
- Stephen Wallace, University of Edinburgh, Breaking the Wall of Plastic-to-Medicine Conversion
- Tianyi Ma, RMIT University, Breaking the Wall of Captured Carbon Conversion
- Xingjun Wang, Peking University, Breaking the Wall of Full-Spectrum Communication
- Xu Lu, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Breaking the Wall of Valorizing Captured CO₂
- Yanhui Chu, South China University of Technology, Breaking the Wall of Thermal Protection Frontier
- Yu He, Shenzhen International Quantum Academy, Breaking the Wall of Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computing
- Yu Huang, University of California, Los Angeles, Breaking the Wall of Cost-Effective Hydrogen Fuel Cells
- Zetian Mi, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Breaking the Wall of Distributed Ammonia Synthesis
- Zeynep Akata, Helmholtz Munich & Technical University of Munich, Breaking the Wall of Unrepairable AI
- Zhanybek Alpichshev, Institute of Science and Technology Austria, Breaking the Wall of the Perovskite Paradox
- Alda Mari, Institut Jean Nicod CNRS/ENS/EHESS/PSL University, Breaking the Wall of Crisis Response Delay
- Anat Brunstein Klomek, Reichman University, Breaking the Wall of Delayed Suicide Care
- Andy Skumanich, Innov8AI, Breaking the Wall of Hidden Risk in Complex Systems
- Gabriele Jacobs, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Breaking the Wall of AI as Public Safety Fix
- Gasper Begus, University of California, Berkeley, Breaking the Wall of Hidden Whale Vowels
- Divyangana Rakesh, King's College London, Breaking the Wall of Inequality in the Brain
- Erik Brynjolfsson, Stanford University, Breaking the Wall of the Turing Trap
- Federico Zimmerman, Harvard University, Breaking the Wall of Rising Polarization
- Genia Kostka, Freie Universität Berlin, Breaking the Wall of AI as a Neutral Technology
- Isadora Cruxên, Queen Mary University of London, Breaking the Wall of Missing Data on Feminicide
- Jackson Lu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Breaking the Wall of Assessing AI Use Ability: AIQ
- Jessica Jewell, Chalmers University of Technology, Breaking the Wall of Apolitical Climate Futures
- Joana Bordalo, Native Scientists, Breaking the Wall of Elitism in Science
- Karin Wolf-Ostermann, University of Bremen, Breaking the Wall of Human-Centered AI Care
- Kate Philip, Presidential Employment Stimulus, Breaking the Wall of Unemployment
- Katrien Beuls, Université de Namur, Breaking the Wall of Human-like Language in Machines
- Kehinde Okunade, The Impact Rise Global, Breaking the Wall of Top-Down Development
- Kobi Hackenburg, University of Oxford, Breaking the Wall of AI Political Persuasion
- Laraib Khan, Ziauddin University, Breaking the Wall of Climate-Fragile Healthcare
- Luciano Sewaybricker, University of São Paulo, Breaking the Wall of Happiness Colonization
- Luke Kemp, University of Cambridge, Breaking the Wall of Societal Collapse
- Marco Postiglione, Northwestern University, Breaking the Wall of Social Change Blindness with AI
- Maya Adam, Stanford University School of Medicine, Breaking the Wall of Addiction Stigma
- Pedi Obani, University of Bradford, Breaking the Wall of Climate Injustice for Women
- Romain Garcier, Ecole normale supérieure de Lyon, Breaking the Wall of Sufficiency for Rare Earths
- Sander van der Linden, University of Cambridge, Breaking the Wall of Cognitive Immunity
- Saumitra Jha, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Breaking the Wall of the Ethnic Growth Trap
- Ufuk Akcigit, University of Chicago, Breaking the Wall of Germany's Invisible Divide
- Xunchang Fei, Nanyang Technological University, Breaking the Wall of Global South Waste Management
- Yossi Zaidner, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Breaking the Wall of Neanderthal Otherness
- Alice Bucknell, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) & the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), Breaking the Wall of Planetary Simulation
- Christopher Bellamy, Bio Crafted, Breaking the Wall of Living Systems and Machines
- Clemens Wenger, Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität, Breaking the Wall of Quantum Music
- DISNOVATION.ORG, Breaking the Wall of Infinite Growth
- Eduardo Miranda, University of Plymouth, Breaking the Wall of Quantum Computing for Creativity
- Entangled Others, Independent, Breaking the Wall of the Intangible
- Ersin Han Ersin, Marshmallow Laser Feast, Breaking the Wall of the Mind of the Whale
- Fara Peluso, Fara Peluso Studio, Breaking the Wall of Future Food
- Gyuchul Moon, Royal Conservatoire The Hague, Breaking the Wall of Bio-Sonic Emergence
- Ioana Vreme Moser, Independent, Breaking the Wall of Computation with Fluidics
- Irmandy Wicaksono, National University of Singapore, Breaking the Wall of Electronic Textiles
- Isidora Correa, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Breaking the Wall of Lithium Recovery with Bacteria
- Jonathon Keats, The University of Arizona, Breaking the Wall of Architectural Heritage
- Kasia Molga, Studio Molga Ltd, Breaking the Wall of Ocean Opacity & Subsea Oil Seeps
- Kirsten Hudson, Curtin University, Breaking the Wall of Extractive Image-Making
- Laura Cinti, C-LAB, Breaking the Wall of Delayed Ecological Loss
- Luc Steels, VUB Brussels University & Takashi Ikegami, University of Tokyo, Breaking the Wall of Machine Consciousness
- Maija Tammi, Independent, Breaking the Wall of Emotional Decision Making
- Marco Donnarumma, Marco Donnarumma Studio, Breaking the Wall of Silence: I Am Your Body
- Marina Otero Verzier, Harvard University, Breaking the Wall of Computation Compost
- Monica Ursina Jäger & Lena Bakker, ETH Zurich, Breaking the Wall of Understanding the Living
- Pau Aleikum Garcia, Domestic Data Streamers, Breaking the Wall of Memory Reconstruction through AI
- Patrícia J. Reis, University of Applied Arts Vienna & Stefanie Wuschitz, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Breaking the Wall of Decolonial Circuitry
- Peder Anker, New York University, Breaking the Wall of Silicon Memory with Living Archives
- Rachel Armstrong, KU Leuven, Breaking the Wall of Obligate Consumption
- Shih-Wen Huang, Vibeweaving, Breaking the Wall of Cultural Flattening in AI
- Shuai Liu, Independent, Breaking the Wall of War Pollution
- Siobhán McDonald, Trinity College Dublin, Breaking the Wall of Limits through Transformation
- Yana Zschiedrich, Independent, Breaking the Wall of Ecological Paralysis
- Yuma Kishi, Independent, Breaking the Wall of the Human Operator
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