The prestigious Albert Lasker Medical Research Awards will go to five scientists for discoveries that advance medical research and treatments. Many of the past winners of the $300,000 awards go on to win Nobel Prizes.
The Lasker Foundation gives out awards in three categories. Three scientists will share the Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, for discovering “an unanticipated world of tiny RNA’s that regulate gene activity in plants and animals,” according to the foundation. They are Victor R. Ambros of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, in Worcester; Gary B. Ruvkun of Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, and Harvard Medical School; and David C. Baulcombe of the University of Cambridge.
Stanley Falkow of the Stanford University School of Medicine will receive the Lasker-Koshland Award for Special Achievement in Medical Science, for his discoveries about infectious diseases.
The Lasker-DeBakey Award for Clinical Medical Research will go to Akira Endo, of Biopharm Research Laboratories Inc., in Tokyo, for his discovery of the first statin. “Statins significantly lower LDL-cholesterol quantities in the blood, thus dramatically reducing the risk of coronary heart disease,” according to the foundation. —Richard Monastersky
