Harvard scientist wins Breakthrough Prize for proving 'hard wired' parenting instincts

A Harvard professor has won a 2021 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for deconstructing complex parenting behaviour to the level of person’s wiring. Harvard Molecular and Cellular Biology professor Catherine Dula won one of the most prestigious awards in the sciences for demonstrating that the neural circuits governing both male and female-specific parenting behaviours are present in both sexes.

The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, founded in 2013, honours transformative advances toward understanding living systems and extending human life. The 3 million-dollar-prize is sponsored by Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, Tencent CEO Pony Ma, Russian entrepreneurs Yuri and Julia Milner, and CEO of 23andMe Anne Wojcicki.

Dulac told the Harvard Gazette, a University-run publication, that she was “shocked” upon receiving the news, crediting teamwork for the lucrative win. Dulac, who served as chair of Molecular and Cellular Biology from 2007 to 2013, told the Gazette that the prize was gratifying because, initially, many considered her approach as inferior.

“All of this work was thought through and performed in very close collaboration with grad students, undergraduates, and postdocs. You never think alone,” she was quoted as saying.

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Apart from Dulac, three other researchers won the 2021 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, including a scientist from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Yuk Ming Dennis Lo has awarded the prize for discovering that fetal DNA is present in maternal blood and can be used for the prenatal testing of trisomy 21 and other genetic disorders. The other two winners are David Baker from the University of Washington and Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Richard J. Youle from National Institutes of Health.

Gala ceremony delayed

The Breakthrough Prize is celebrated at a gala award ceremony in the presence of celebrities from cinema, music, sports and tech entrepreneurship. However, this year’s ceremony has been postponed until March 2021 due to the pandemic. The prize foundation said in a statement that it is awarding a collective $18.75 million in support of scientists working on the biggest and most fundamental questions.

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(Image credit: Harvard)