Breakthrough Prize
12th Breakthrough Prize · Los Angeles · April 18, 2026
Introduced by John Legend and Demis Hassabis, before the Life Sciences Prize was awarded, Yentli gave “one of the most powerful speeches of the evening” according to the Breakthrough Prize press release.
“Rosa Rademakers and Bryan Traynor discovered our genetic mutation. They mapped the battlefield; now we can wage the war.”
— YENTLI SOTO ALBRECHT, PHD, MD TRAINEE
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Red Carpet Interview
Watch Yentli’s interview, where she explains how the dress and cape were built to represent the genetic mutation coursing through her DNA.
Custom C9 repeat expansion Dress by Designer Jonathan Cohen.
The GGGGCC Dress.
A Custom Gown Worn at the 2026 Breakthrough Prize Ceremony — dress design by Jonathan Cohen, styled and creatively directed by J’lyn Martin, earrings by Don’t Let Disco.
This is a one-of-a-kind custom gown, recently worn on stage by Dr. Yentli Soto Albrecht at the 2026 Breakthrough Prize Ceremony, widely known as the “Oscars of Science,” before an audience drawn from across science, technology, and film. The 2026 Life Sciences Prize was awarded to Rosa Rademakers and Bryan Traynor for their discovery of the C9orf72 repeat expansion as the most common genetic cause of ALS and frontotemporal dementia — the same mutation Dr. Soto Albrecht carries in her own genome. Introduced by John Legend and Demis Hassabis, she spoke about turning her own genetic risk into a mission to cure the diseases it causes, and her talk received a standing ovation.
Every element of the ensemble was custom-made to carry that story on her body.
The dress (size 4) joins two black fabrics — silk and wool — with an alternating series of silver knots that course down the body in a helical pattern, like DNA. The knots alternate 4-2, 4-2, because the C9 mutation is GGGGCC: four guanines followed by two cytosines, repeated over a thousand times in her genome.
The light blue cape, in the color of the ALS awareness ribbon, carries the letters GGGGCC spelled out in silver in her own handwriting, flowing down her back like the excess material her body produces because of the repeat expansion. At the very bottom, written in a combination of her handwriting and her father’s — her father, whom she lost to C9 ALS in 2024 — is the line that anchored her Breakthrough Prize talk: as long as you’re breathing, you can still make changes.
Dress and earrings auctioned separately. All proceeds go to ALS research.
This ensemble is being donated in its entirety to benefit ALS research via the Augie’s Quest for a Cure auction, with all proceeds to ALS Therapy Development Institute.
These one-of-a-kind earrings were custom-made for Dr. Yentli Soto Albrecht’s appearance at the 2026 Breakthrough Prize Ceremony, widely known as the “Oscars of Science,” where the Life Sciences Prize was awarded to Rosa Rademakers and Bryan Traynor for their discovery of the C9orf72 repeat expansion as the most common genetic cause of ALS and frontotemporal dementia — the same mutation Dr. Soto Albrecht carries in her own genome. The earrings, made by Don’t Let Disco, were chosen and creatively directed by designer Jonathan Cohen and stylist J’lyn Martin so that every element of the ensemble would speak to the same story.
The earrings are set with healing crystals — a reminder to harness hope and turn the tide on these fatal diseases, for this generation and the next. Their helical structure bespeaks DNA, echoing the alternating silver knots that course in a helical pattern down the accompanying gown. The two earrings are deliberately asymmetric, reminiscent of a single gene — C9orf72 — that causes two fatal diseases, ALS and frontotemporal dementia.
These earrings are being donated to benefit ALS research as a separate item from the accompanying “GGGGCC dress” and “helix cape,” which are sold together as a single unit.
The Speech
12th Breakthrough Prize ceremony · April 18, 2026
My dad used to say “As long as you’re breathing, you can still make changes” — even as ALS stole his life in just 14 months.
I was there for his missteps, the nights he cried out asking us to move him, the words he couldn’t utter because they cost him his breath. On August 24, 2024, my dad, Frank Albrecht, died in my arms but he wanted to live. And in his eyes — that are also my eyes — I saw what was coming for me.
As he lost his life, I lost my future — the children I may never see married. The patients I may never treat. The decades I may never have. Because I learned I had inherited the most common genetic cause of familial ALS and frontotemporal dementia, or FTD, from him: a string of nonsense in my genetic code we call the C9 repeat expansion.
“I have a fifty percent chance of developing ALS or FTD by 55, like my aunt. Ninety-five percent by 65, like my nana and my dad. I’ve probably lived over half my life already.”
Before 2011, ALS and FTD were thought to be two separate diseases. But Rosa Rademakers and Bryan Traynor discovered the genetic thread linking them — and connecting three generations of my family tree.
There is no cure for me yet. There’s no test to predict which disease I’ll get, when I’ll get it, or how to stop it once it starts.
But in the fight for my life, the discovery by these scientists gave me something powerful: a target. And I realized I had something useful in this fight — an MD-PhD. I am uniquely positioned, one foot in science, one foot in medicine, to fight for the lives of my patients and loved ones facing these devastating diseases.
“Help me End the Legacy of ALS and FTD?”
“Will you help me cure myself?”
I started asking scientists, CEOs, and other leaders.
In one year the tide is turning. I’ve built 11 collaborative projects across eight countries — including CureC9, a program to target my mutation once and for all. My mind, turned against the C9 gibberish in my DNA; my hands, working urgently for a cure while they can. I give my mind but also my body — my cells, my blood, my spinal fluid. I give and give and give so that if I fail, the next generation gets to live.
“My dad and I share a genetic fate, but I’m changing my future.”
Rosa Rademakers and Bryan Traynor discovered our genetic mutation. They mapped the battlefield; and now we can wage the war.
They are my someday I’ll be able to tell my patients: You have the C9 repeat expansion, and this is how we’ll fight it.
My dad used to say “As long as you’re breathing, you can still make changes.”
Well I don’t know how long I’ve got, but papi, I’m still breathing, and I’m making changes.
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Photos and videos on this page were acquired from the Breakthrough Prize media packet with permission, which you can access here: publicity.gettyimages.com/event/12th-breakthrough-prize-ceremony.