THREE multimillion-pound prizes designed to help solve some of the world’s most pressing scientific puzzles will be offered later this year.

The rewards, which could exceed $10 million (£5.7 million) each, will be offered by the X-Prize Foundation, the organisation set up by Peter Diamandis of Space Adventures. That company created the first space tourist in 2001 by assisting Dennis Tito to fly to the International Space Station.

The foundation’s trustees include Larry Page, the co-founder of internet search company Google; Richard Garriott, the video game pioneer; and Craig Venter, a Vietnam veteran who went on to become a leading genetics researcher and entrepreneur.

Dr Diamandis said last night that the prizes were likely to include $10 million for the first company to sequence the genetic code of 100 people in a matter of weeks. “The value of the human genome doesn’t really occur until you have it for tens of hundreds of people, so the prize will make that happen,” he said.

Another prize will encourage research to devise viable alternatives to the internal combustion engine in motor vehicles.

A second space prize will also be offered to follow the success of SpaceShipOne, which won $10 million in October 2004 when it became the first private spacecraft to reach an altitude of 62 miles on the edge of space.

The vehicle was built by Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites and sponsored by Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, and made pilots Mike Melvil and Brian Binnie the first private astronauts. Twenty-six teams had vied for the title.

Dr Diamandis hopes that the prizes will influence research by focusing attention on a particular problem. “By setting up prizes with a big enough purse, you can reach across space and time and problems will get solved,” he said.

The foundation’s prize money comes from wealthy philanthropists and corporate sponsorship.

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