If a group of Silicon Valley luminaries have their way, scientists working on some of the world’s most intractable diseases will be like superheroes for future generations.  On Wednesday, Apple Chairman Art Levinson, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, 23andMe co-founder (and wife of Brin) Anne Wojcicki, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Zuckerberg’s wife Priscilla Chan and investor Yuri Milner announced a new Breakthrough Prize recognizing achievement in life sciences research. Administered through a new Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Foundation, the prize will be awarded to five individuals or teams annually but this year 11 inaugural recipients received $3 million each.

Speaking at a presentation event Wednesday at the University of California, San Francisco Wojcicki said that given her father’s position as a Stanford University physicist she grew up appreciating the work of scientists, but that society generally tends to overlook their contributions.

“To me it always seemed like it was a real tragedy -– we all go to the doctor, we’ve all taken Tylenol and Advil and some of us have been sicker and have had to take other medications,” she said.  “But do you ever think about who actually invented that? Does anyone know the names of those people?”

Zuckerberg emphasized that the while the prize was meant to recognize researchers at the top of their fields, it’s also intended to inspire future scientists.

“I think that our society needs more heroes who are scientists and researchers and engineers. You guys are doing all of the amazing work and the thing that we can do from the sidelines is build institutions that celebrate and reward and recognize all of the real work,” he said. “The things that we talk about in the media and the things the market rewards has a big influence on what the next generation of people growing up will choose to do and I think it’s really important that a lot of the smartest people go and choose to solve these problems and go into these lines of work.”

To ensure that the ones making the top contributions are the ones deciding who gets recognition, winners will help select future recipients of the prize. Also, anyone can nominate a candidate online and there are no age restrictions.

Here are the first 11 winners (language from the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Foundation):

Cornelia I. Bargmann
Torsten N. Wiesel Professor and Head of the Lulu and Anthony Wang Laboratory of Neural Circuits and
Behavior at the Rockefeller University. Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.

For the genetics of neural circuits and behavior, and synaptic guidepost molecules.

David Botstein
Director of the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics and the Anthony B. Evnin Professor of
Genomics at Princeton University.

For linkage mapping of Mendelian disease in humans using DNA polymorphisms.

Lewis C. Cantley
Margaret and Herman Sokol Professor and Director of the Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medical
College and New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

For the discovery of PI 3-Kinase and its role in cancer metabolism.

Hans Clevers
Professor of Molecular Genetics at Hubrecht Institute.

For describing the role of Wnt signaling in tissue stem cells and cancer.

Titia de Lange
Leon Hess Professor, Head of the Laboratory of Cell Biology and Genetics, and Director of the Anderson
Center for Cancer Research at the Rockefeller University.

For research on telomeres, illuminating how they protect chromosome ends and their role in genome
instability in cancer.

Napoleone Ferrara
Distinguished Professor of Pathology and Senior Deputy Director for Basic Sciences at Moores Cancer
Center at the University of California, San Diego.

For discoveries in the mechanisms of angiogenesis that led to therapies for cancer and eye diseases.

Eric S. Lander
President and Founding Director of the Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. Professor of
Biology at MIT. Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School.

For the discovery of general principles for identifying human disease genes, and enabling their
application to medicine through the creation and analysis of genetic, physical and sequence maps of the
human genome.

Charles L. Sawyers
Chair, Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Howard
Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.

For cancer genes and targeted therapy.

Bert Vogelstein
Director of the Ludwig Center and Clayton Professor of Oncology and Pathology at the Johns Hopkins
Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.

For cancer genomics and tumor suppressor genes.

Robert A. Weinberg
Daniel K. Ludwig Professor for Cancer Research at MIT and Director of the MIT/Ludwig Center for
Molecular Oncology. Member, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.

For characterization of human cancer genes.

Shinya Yamanaka
Director of Center for iPS Cell Research and Application, Kyoto University
Senior Investigator, Gladstone Institutes, San Francisco

For induced pluripotent stem cells.

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The Kleiner Perkins-backed startup, which is part of health tech accelerator Rock Health’s current class, on Tuesday announced that it had added group lessons to its online training options.

In July, the startup launched live online personal training sessions, in which trainers provide instruction with a webcam, laptop and internet connection for an average of $40. The new group lessons not only enable people to participate in online exercise classes at their convenience (with friends or strangers), they give people an option at a lower price point.  Because the group (of three to five people) shares the cost of the trainer, prices start at $7.50, with most costing around $15.

On Wello’s site, customers can search by group workouts or one-on-one sessions and then browse a range of exercise types (from yoga and pilates to martial arts and aerobics), indicating when they want to take a class and what their goals are. When it’s time for the class, the instructor is most prominently displayed on half of the screen, with the client and the rest of the class splitting the other half.

In the past few years, fitness apps, online video exercise classes and even streaming classes have been on the upswing. But co-founder Ann Scott Plante said she and her co-founder Lindsey Silverglide wanted to create a fitness platform that combined the convenience of working from home with the accountability and motivation that comes with a real-life trainer. To test out the idea of live online fitness class, the founders did a workout with a trainer via Skype. After a 30-minute workout, Plante said, they realized they were on to something.

“We believe that trainers are the secret sauce,” she said, adding that the live instruction and commitment to a person mean that customers actually take the classes they sign up for and learn the various techniques.

On the consumer side, the online platform provides convenience and accountability (particularly with the new group option). And it gives trainers the opportunity to book classes during the middle of the day and other traditionally quieter times.

Since launching the startup two years ago, she said more than 1,000 trainers have applied to their marketplace. The 20 percent who get accepted go through a training program to learn how to be most effective over video. While the company declined to share their number of users, they said two-thirds of those who take one class online go on to take another.

To date, the company has raised $1 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Aberdare and others.

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The amount of funding put toward health tech companies in January was up 172 percent over the same time last year, according to StartUp Health Insights, the database run by New York-based StartUp Health Academy, Investors poured nearly $272 million into 47 deals, with the biggest deal topping $45 million.

Here is a graphical snapshot of some of the January highlights:

Key takeaways:

• About a third of the funding went to seed stage and A-round companies, and more incubators and strategic investors are moving in at the early rounds — not just venture capitalists, who traditionally invest early on.
• The hottest sectors were data and analytics, mobile health and telehealth — all areas that are attracting attention as industry players look for ways to reduce costs, engage consumers and show outcomes.
• The most active investor was the Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, which made three investments in January.
• On average, Series D rounds are 154 percent larger than they were at the same time last year, which StartUp Health says is consistent with a recent trend of many venture capitalists in the sector taking less risk by investing at later stages.

What new trends will we see in 2013? DNA laser printing and more sophisticated connected sensor technology, for example, are both just beginning to gain traction, saidUnity Stoakes, president and co-founder of StartUp Health. “One interesting thing to watch for will be the sources of funding for these early stage companies as capital shifts from life sciences and biotech to health tech and strategic investors become more active,” he said.

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In the segment, he showed off a futuristic flip-phone-sized touchscreen device, worn on the wrist, that helps doctors keep tabs on their patients from afar. The device, called the VisiMobile monitor, tracks a patient’s blood pressure, heart rate, respiration rate and other indicators, and lets doctors check in from wherever they might be via PC, tablet or smartphone.

On Wednesday, Sotera Wireless, the San Diego-based company behind the VisiMobile technology, announced that it had raised an additional $14.8 million. The company, which changed its name from Triage Wireless in 2009, last year won FDA clearance for its VisiMobile technology.  In addition to the wrist monitor, the system includes sensors for the chest and thumb and a blood cuff monitor. It can connect to a hospital’s existing infrastructure via secure Wi-Fi to let doctors and nurses keep closer tabs on more patients within a hospital or it can be used to let doctors monitor recently discharged patients.

As health providers prepare to give care to more patients and as hospitals face more pressure to lower readmission rates, systems like this, as well as other tele-health technology, could become increasingly valuable.

In a statement, Sotera Wireless CEO Tom Watlington, said the new funding would go towards commercialization, clinical development and making the technology available to more than 5,000 hospitals across the country. Safeguard Scientifics, a holding company that provides capital and support to health care and technology companies, said it contributed $1.33 million. Other investors included new funder Delphi Ventures, as well as existing funders Sanderling Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, EDBI, Intel Capital, Cerner Capital and West Health Investment Fund.

You can see a video of Dr. Topol talking about the technology on Rock Center below:

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