The Breakthrough of the Year is an annual award for the most significant development in scientific research made by the
AAAS
AAAS may refer to:
* American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a learned society and center for policy research; the publisher of the journal ''Dædalus''
* American Association for the Advancement of Science, an organization that supports scientifi ...
journal ''
Science,'' an
academic journal covering all branches of science. Originating in 1989 as the ''Molecule of the Year'', and inspired by ''
Time''
Man of the Year, it was renamed the Breakthrough of the Year in 1996.
Molecule of the Year
* 1989
PCR PCR or pcr may refer to:
Science
* Phosphocreatine, a phosphorylated creatine molecule
* Principal component regression, a statistical technique
Medicine
* Polymerase chain reaction
** COVID-19 testing, often performed using the polymerase chain r ...
and
DNA polymerase
* 1990 the manufacture of
synthetic diamonds Synthetic things are composed of multiple parts, often with the implication that they are artificial. In particular, 'synthetic' may refer to:
Science
* Synthetic chemical or compound, produced by the process of chemical synthesis
* Synthetic o ...
* 1991
buckminsterfullerene
* 1992
nitric oxide
Nitric oxide (nitrogen oxide or nitrogen monoxide) is a colorless gas with the formula . It is one of the principal oxides of nitrogen. Nitric oxide is a free radical: it has an unpaired electron, which is sometimes denoted by a dot in its che ...
* 1993
p53
* 1994
DNA repair enzyme
Breakthrough of the Year
* 1996: Understanding
HIV
* 1997:
Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be
clone
Clone or Clones or Cloning or Cloned or The Clone may refer to:
Places
* Clones, County Fermanagh
* Clones, County Monaghan, a town in Ireland
Biology
* Clone (B-cell), a lymphocyte clone, the massive presence of which may indicate a pathologi ...
d from adult cells
* 1998:
Accelerating universe
* 1999: Prospective
stem-cell therapies
Stem-cell therapy is the use of stem cells to treat or prevent a disease or condition. , the only established therapy using stem cells is hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. This usually takes the form of a bone marrow, bone-marrow transpla ...
* 2000:
Full genome sequencing
* 2001:
Nanocircuits or
Molecular circuit
* 2002:
RNA interference
* 2003:
Dark energy
* 2004:
''Spirit'' rover landed on
Mars
* 2005:
Evolution in action
* 2006: Proof of the
Poincaré conjecture
* 2007:
Human genetic variation
* 2008:
Cellular reprogramming
* 2009: ''
Ardipithecus ramidus''
* 2010: The first
quantum machine
* 2011: HIV treatment as prevention (
HPTN 052 HPTN 052 is the name of a clinical trial conducted in nine countries which examined whether starting people living with HIV on antiretroviral therapy (ART) can reduce the chance that they will pass HIV on to their sexual partners who do not have HIV ...
)
* 2012: Discovery of the
Higgs boson
The Higgs boson, sometimes called the Higgs particle, is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics produced by the quantum excitation of the Higgs field,
one of the fields in particle physics theory. In the Stand ...
* 2013:
Cancer immunotherapy
* 2014:
''Rosetta'' comet mission
* 2015:
CRISPR genome-editing method
* 2016:
First observation of gravitational waves
* 2017:
Neutron star merger (
GW170817)
* 2018:
Single cell sequencing
* 2019: A
black hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravitation, gravity is so strong that nothing, including light or other Electromagnetic radiation, electromagnetic waves, has enough energy to escape it. The theory of general relativity predicts t ...
made visible.
* 2020:
COVID-19 vaccine
A COVID19 vaccine is a vaccine intended to provide acquired immunity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2), the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 ( COVID19).
Prior to the COVID19 pandemic, an e ...
, developed and tested at record speed
* 2021:
An AI brings
protein structures to all
* 2022:
James Webb Space Telescope
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a space telescope which conducts infrared astronomy. As the largest optical telescope in space, its high resolution and sensitivity allow it to view objects too old, distant, or faint for the Hubble Spa ...
debut
See also
Other Top 10 Breakthroughs of the Year:
* ''
Physics World'' (physics)
*
Wired (website) (sciences)
References
{{Portal bar, Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Geology, Physics, Science
Science and technology awards
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Awards established in 1989
Awards established in 1996
Scientific research awards