Robert Downey Jr and Mark Zuckerberg hand Breakthrough Prizes to Cambridge sequencing pioneers

It’s known as the Oscars of science and Hollywood stars and famous faces were certainly out in force at the Breakthrough Prize ceremony in Los Angeles, where Cambridge scientists behind the next-generation DNA sequencing were honoured.

Iron Man actor Robert Downey Junior and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg handed over the $3million Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences to University of Cambridge sequencing pioneers Shankar Balasubramanian and David Klenerman and French scientist Pascal Mayer.

The event, hosted by James Corden - who joked “I’m not bright enough to be here” - heard how the trio had unlocked high-speed sequencing, enabling genomes to be read in hours, rather than days or months.

Downey Jr said: “In the movie of life, DNA is a script.” You can watch the life science laureates collect their prize in the following video (watch from 18:50).

Dr Balasubramanian and Dr Klenerman famously sketched out their ideas for what was to become groundbreaking DNA sequencing technology in the beer garden of The Panton Arms in Cambridge in 1997.

They went on to found Solexa, which by 2006 had launched its first sequencer. A year later it was acquired for $600million by Illumina, now the global leader in sequencing.

The Breakthrough Prize, which Zuckerberg co-founded, featured a performance from Grammy-winning artist, appearances by Kristen Bell, Leslie Odom Jr and Chris Pine, and presenters including Danny DeVito, Gal Gadot, Brie Larson, Edward Norton and Chloé Zhao.

The prize celebrates the research achievements of the world’s leading scientists, awarding more than $15 million in prizes annually.