The Shaw Prize Foundation in Hong Kong has announced the recipients of the 2009 Shaw Prizes in astronomy, life science and medicine, and mathematical sciences. Each prize comes with a cash award of $1 million.

First awarded in 2004, the Shaw Prizes honor individuals who have achieved a significant breakthrough in academic and scientific research or application and whose work has had a positive and profound impact on mankind.

This year's astronomy prize was awarded to University of California professor Frank H. Shu for his lifetime contributions to theoretical astronomy. The life science and medicine prize was awarded to Douglas L. Coleman, emeritus scientist of the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, and Jeffrey M. Friedman, Rockefeller University professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, for work that led to the discovery of leptin, a hormone that regulates food intake and body weight; they will split the prize money. And the prize for mathematical sciences was awarded to Simon K. Donaldson, the Royal Society Research Professor of Pure Mathematics at Imperial College London, and Clifford H. Taubes, the William Petschek Professor of Mathematics at Harvard, for their contributions to geometry in three and four dimensions.

"Thanks to the effort of members of the selection committees and colleagues of the foundation, the prize has built up its prestige worldwide within a short period of time," said Shaw Prize Council member Lin Ma. "We look forward to greater success of the prize in the years to come."