Lasker Award

The Albert Lasker Medical Research Awards have been awarded annually since 1946 to living persons who have made major contributions to medical science. They are administered by the Lasker Foundation, founded by advertising pioneer Albert Lasker and his wife Mary Woodward Lasker (later an influential medical research activist). The awards are sometimes referred to as "America's Nobels." As of 2005, 71 recipients have gone on to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. James W. Fordyce is the current President of the Foundation.

The four main awards are:

• Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research
• Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research
• Mary Woodard Lasker Award for Public Service (renamed in 2000 from Albert Lasker Public Service Award)
• Albert Lasker Special Achievement Award (1994-)

Recent awards

Generally the Lasker Award is given in three categories – Basic Medical Research, Clinical Medical Research, and the Special Achievement Award. Recent winners include the following:

2003

• Basic – Robert G. Roeder, Rockefeller University

"for pioneering studies on eukaryotic RNA polymerases and the general transcriptional machinery, which opened gene expression in animal cells to biochemical analysis."

• Clinical – Marc Feldmann and Ravinder N. Maini

"for discovery of anti-TNF therapy as an effective treatment for rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases."

2004

• Basic – Pierre Chambon, Ronald M. Evans and Elwood V. Jensen

"For the discovery of the superfamily of nuclear hormone receptors and elucidation of a unifying mechanism that regulates embryonic development and diverse metabolic pathways."

• Clinical – Charles Kelman, New York Medical College

"for revolutionizing the surgical removal of cataracts, turning a 10-day hospital stay into an outpatient procedure, and dramatically reducing complications."

2005

• Basic – Ernest A. McCulloch and James E. Till

"for ingenious experiments that first identified a stem cell - the blood-forming stem cell - which set the stage for all current research on adult and embryonic stem cells."

• Clinical – Alec John Jeffreys and Edwin Mellor Southern

"for development of two powerful technologies - Southern hybridization and DNA fingerprinting - that together revolutionized human genetics and forensic diagnostics."

2006

Winners of the 2006 Lasker Awards were announced September 16, 2006. Among announcements were the following awards: (Reuters), (laskerfoundation.org)

• The Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, for work on telomerase and genome integrity, went to:
  • Elizabeth Blackburn (University of California, San Francisco),
  • Carol W. Greider (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine), and
  • Jack Szostak (Harvard Medical School and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute)

• Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research:
  • Aaron T. Beck (University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine) for developing cognitive therapy.

• Albert Lasker Special Achievement Award:
  • Joseph G. Gall (Carnegie Institution of Washington) for his work as an early leader of modern cell biology, particularly for the development of in situ hybridization, and as an early champion of women in science.

2007

On September 15, 2007, the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation announced the 2007 Lasker Award winners which included 2 surgeons:

• Drs. Alain Carpentier, 74, Georges Pompidou hospital in Paris;
• Albert Starr, 81, of the Providence Health System in Portland, Oregon;
• Dr. Ralph Steinman, 64, of Rockefeller University in Manhattan;
• and Dr. Anthony Fauci, 66, an internationally known immunologist.

Dr. Steinman and Dr. Fauci will each receive $150,000 and Dr. Starr and Dr. Carpentier will each receive $75,000.

External links

• The Lasker Foundation - Official site