Some of the world's richest internet entrepreneurs, including Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg, have awarded 11 disease researchers $3 million each, BBC News reported.

Nine of the recipients of the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences are based at U.S. institutions. The other two are from the Netherlands and Japan.

Many of the winners work on cell genetics and how it relates to disease.

One of the sponsors, genetics company founder 23andMe, Anne Wojcicki, said the winners should be household names.

In addition to Zuckerberg, his wife Priscilla Chan and Wojcicki, the prize is sponsored Wojcicki's husband Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, and Yuri Milner, a Russian entrepreneur.

Milner, along with the new foundation's chair, Arthur Levinson, a former chief executive at a biotech company and current chairman of Apple, chose the prize winners.

From 2014 on, the foundation will award $3m to five scientists each year. There is no age restriction on the prize and past winners can win again.