Awards & Winners

Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research

Lasker Award

The Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research is one of the prizes awarded by the Lasker Foundation for the understanding, diagnosis, prevention, treatment, and cure of disease. The award frequently precedes a Nobel Prize in Medicine: almost 50% of the winners have gone on to win one.
Date Established : 1946

Check all the winners of Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research presented under Lasker Award since 1946 .


Kazutoshi Mori, Peter Walter

(For discoveries concerning the unfolded protein response \u2014 an intracellular quality control system that detects harmful misfolded proteins in the endoplasmic reticulum and signals the nucleus to carry out corrective measures.)

Richard Scheller, Thomas C. Südhof

(For discoveries concerning the molecular machinery and regulatory mechanism that underlie the rapid release of neurotransmitters.)

Michael Sheetz, James Spudich, Ronald Vale

(For discoveries concerning cytoskeletal motor proteins, machines that move cargoes within cells, contract muscles, and enable cell movements.)

Franz-Ulrich Hartl, Arthur L. Horwich

(For discoveries concerning the cell's protein-folding machinery, exemplified by cage-like structures that convert newly made proteins into their biologically active forms.)

Douglas L. Coleman, Jeffrey M. Friedman

(For the discovery of leptin, a hormone that regulates appetite and body weight\u2014a breakthrough that opened obesity research to molecular exploration.)

John Gurdon, Shinya Yamanaka

(For the discoveries concerning nuclear reprogramming, the process that instructs specialized adult cells to form early stem cells\u2014creating the potential to become any type of mature cell for experimental or therapeutic purposes.)

Victor Ambros, David Baulcombe, Gary Ruvkun

(For discoveries that revealed an unanticipated world of tiny RNAs that regulate gene function in plants and animals.)

Ralph M. Steinman

(For the discovery of dendritic cells\u2014the preeminent component of the immune system that initiates and regulates the body's response to foreign antigens. )

Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol W. Greider, Jack W. Szostak

(For the prediction and discovery of telomerase, a remarkable RNA-containing enzyme that synthesizes the ends of chromosomes, protecting them and maintaining the integrity of the genome.)

Ernest McCulloch, James Till

(Ernest McCulloch and James Till for ingenious experiments that first identified a stem cell \u2014 the blood-forming stem cell \u2014 which set the stage for all current research on adult and embryonic stem cells.)

Ronald M. Evans, Pierre Chambon, 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)

Robert G. Roeder

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

Randy Schekman, James Rothman

(For discoveries revealing the universal machinery that orchestrates the budding and fusion of membrane vesicles \u2014 a process essential to organelle formation, nutrient uptake, and secretion of hormones and neurotransmitters.)

Oliver Smithies, Martin Evans, Mario Capecchi

(For the development of a powerful technology for manipulating the mouse genome with exquisite precision, which allows the creation of animal models of human disease.)

Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko, Alexander Varshavsky

(For the discovery and the recognition of the significance of the ubiquitin system of regulated protein degradation, a fundamental process that influences vital cellular events, including the cell cycle, malignant transformation, and responses to inflammation and immunity)

Roderick MacKinnon, Bertil Hille, Clay Armstrong

(For elucidating the functional and structural architecture of ion channel proteins, which govern the electrical potential of membranes throughout nature, thereby generating nerve impulses and controlling muscle contraction, cardiac rhythm, and hormone secretion.)

Paul Nurse, Leland H. Hartwell, Yoshio Masui

(For pioneering genetic and molecular studies that revealed the universal machinery for regulating cell division in all eukaryotic organisms, from yeasts to frogs to human beings.)

Mark Ptashne

(For elegant and incisive discoveries leading to the understanding of how regulatory proteins control the transcription of genes.)

Ferid Murad

(For ingenious elucidation of the cyclic GMP signaling pathway of nitric oxide and for essential discoveries that led to establishing the link between endothelium-derived relaxing factor and nitric oxide.)

Robert F. Furchgott

(For the landmark discovery of endothelium-derived relaxing factor (EDRF), now known to be nitric oxide, and other research findings that have profound implications for the treatment of cardiovascular conditions and other diseases.)

Peter C. Doherty

(For the epochal discovery of MHC restriction of T-cell recognition and the single T-cell receptor altered-self hypothesis.)

Jack L. Strominger

(For pioneering the isolation of and solution to the structures of class I and class II MHC proteins and their peptide complexes.)

Emil R. Unanue

(For seminal discoveries in antigen processing and MHC-peptide binding which deciphered the biochemical basis of T-cell recognition.)

Don Craig Wiley

(For visualizing the three-dimensional structures of class I and class II proteins and their complexes with antigens and superantigens.)

Rolf M. Zinkernagel

(For the landmark discovery of MHC restriction of T-cell recognition, and the altered-self hypothesis.)

Stanley B. Prusiner

(For landmark, revolutionary work that established the existence of an entirely new class of infectious agents, and which opened new understanding of the pathogenesis of several baffling neurodegenerative diseases. )

Günter Blobel

(For landmark discoveries concerning the processes by which intercellular proteins are targeted across cell membranes.)

Edward B. Lewis

(For fundamental research on the Bithorax complex, which established the role of homeotic genes in the development of cell patterns and provided a foundation for current studies of embryonic development.)

Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard

(For charting new paths in developmental biology through investigations which led to the discovery of nearly all genes responsible for organizing basic body patterns. )

Michael Berridge

(For his masterful research revealing how IP3 governs the intracellular level of calcium and orchestrates the major activities of the cell.)

Alfred G. Gilman

(For his pioneering studies of signal transduction and for his discovery that G-proteins carry signals that regulate vital processes within cells.)

Edwin G. Krebs

(For his seminal finding that phosphorylation activates major enzymes in cells, and for perceiving the profound importance of protein kinase enzymes.)

Yasutomi Nishizuka

(For his profound contributions to the understanding of signal transduction in cells, and for his discovery that carcinogens trigger cell growth by activating protein kinase C.)

Thomas Cech

(For his revolutionary research revealing the enzymatic role of RNA, opening a new universe in molecular biology.)

Phillip Allen Sharp

(For his series of revelations regarding the ability of RNA processing to convert DNA's massive store of genetic data to biological use.)

Leroy Hood

(For his prolific and imaginative studies of somatic recombination in the immune system, detailing in molecular terms the genetics of antibody diversity.)

Philip Leder

(For his elegant genetic studies, particularly in carcinogenesis, and for developing transgenic laboratory animals for the study of cancer and other diseases.)

Susumu Tonegawa

(For brilliantly demonstrating that the DNA responsible for antibody production is routinely reshuffled to create new genes during the lifetime of an individual.)

Rita Levi-Montalcini

(For her original concept that cell growth is governed by soluble substances, and for the discovery of nerve growth factor (NGF).)

Stanley Cohen

(For discovering and biochemically defining epidermal growth factor (EGF), which illuminated the dynamics of cell growth.)

Joseph L. Goldstein, Michael Stuart Brown

(For their historic discovery of the basic mechanisms controlling cholesterol metabolism, opening the way to a new pharmacologic approach to the treatment of cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death and disability in the Western world.)

Michael Potter

(For his fundamental research in the genetics of immunoglobulin molecules and for paving the way for the development of hybridomas and monoclonal antibodies.)

Georges J. F. Köhler

(For his imaginative concepts and painstaking experiments which produced the first hybridoma and made possible monoclonal antibody technology.)

César Milstein

(For his superb achievement in creating the first hybridomas, a powerful new scientific tool.)

Eric Kandel

(For his brilliant application of cell biology techniques to the study of behavior, revealing the mechanisms underlying learning and memory.)

Vernon Benjamin Mountcastle

(For his original discoveries which illuminate the brain's ability to perceive and organize information, and to translate sensory impulses into behavior.)

J. Michael Bishop

(For his elegant elucidation of the nature of oncogenes, and his contribution to the discovery that these genes are present in normal cells.)

Raymond L. Erikson

(For his contributions to the first identification and functional characterization of the protein products of oncogenes, thus providing a clearer understanding of cell growth and regulation.)

Hidesaburo Hanafusa

(For demonstrating how RNA tumor viruses cause cancer, and elucidating their role in combining, rescuing and maintaining oncogenes in the viral genome.)

Harold E. Varmus

(For his creative and successful pursuit toward the identification of the cellular oncogenes and their control. )

Robert Gallo

(For his pioneering studies that led to the discovery of the first human RNA tumor virus and its association with certain leukemias and lymphomas.)

Barbara McClintock

(For her unparalleled achievement in first discovering that certain genetic elements are not static, as was once believed, but can move about from one location to another on DNA, the genetic material of heredity.)

Paul Berg

(For his key, historic achievements which made recombinant DNA a brilliant reality, and inaugurated a new age of biomedical promise.)

Herbert Boyer

(For his brilliant contributions to recombinant DNA methodology, particularly in enzymology, plasmids, and in application of synthetic DNA.)

Stanley Cohen

(For his splendid contributions to recombinant DNA methodology, and for accomplishing the first transplantation of genes between cells.)

A. Dale Kaiser

(For his crucial role in creating recombinant DNA methodology through his pathbreaking studies of cohesive single-stranded DNA.)

Walter Gilbert, Frederick Sanger

(For their brilliant development of a new technique for the rapid sequencing of DNA.)

Roger Wolcott Sperry

(For contributing to a major advance in man's knowledge of brain function, and the understanding of mental and psychosomatic diseases.)

Hans Kosterlitz

(For his pioneering work in identifying the relation of the opiate receptors to the naturally occurring enkephalins. )

Solomon H. Snyder

(For his demonstration of the nature and distribution of the opiate receptors in the brain, and a whole series of following studies that have illuminated the importance of this system in human physiology.)

John Hughes

(For his discovery and isolation of the two naturally occurring enkephalins and for identifying their relation to the larger beta-lipotropin molecule that exists in the human pituitary gland.)

Sune Bergström

(For his classic achievements in isolating prostaglandins, and elucidating the chemical structures of those types of prostaglandins designated as E and F.)

Bengt I. Samuelsson

(For his exceptional accomplishments in elucidating the mechanism of the biosynthesis of prostaglandins, analyzing their metabolism, and developing new methods for their measurement.)

John Vane

(For his discovery of prostacyclin, whose major action is to prevent the formation of the kind of blood clots that may lead to heart attack and stroke.)

Rosalyn Sussman Yalow

(For the discovery and development of the technique of radioimmunoassay.)

Roger Guillemin, Andrew Schally

(For determination of the structure of hypothalamic hormones, their synthesis, and elucidation of their role in endocrine function\u2014work which is considered the decisive physiological and biochemical evidence of neurohormones in mammals. Such research has established the fact that the pituitary gland and certain other glands of the endocrine system are regulated by the brain through the hypothalamus.)

Frank J. Dixon

(For demonstrating, in a series of brilliant experimental studies with model systems in laboratory animals, that immunologic responses, which ordinarily serve to protect the individual, may actually cause injury and disease.)

Henry Kunkel

(For basic contributions to our understanding of immunology and especially immunological mechanisms which are an underlying factor in certain human renal diseases, and in arthritis.)

Ludwik Gross

(For his original discovery of leukemia- and cancer-inducing viruses in mammals, and the elucidation of their biology and epidemiology.)

Howard E. Skipper

(For his contributions to biology, biochemistry and pharmacology, which have laid the foundations for the chemotherapy of cancer.)

Sol Spiegelman

(For his contributions to molecular biology, including techniques of molecular hybridization and the first synthesis of an infectious nucleic acid.)

Howard Martin Temin

(For his contributions to the biology of RNA-containing cancer viruses and elucidation of the mode of action of viral genes.)

Charles Yanofsky, Seymour Benzer, Sydney Brenner

(For their brilliant contribution to molecular genetics.)

Earl Wilbur Sutherland, Jr.

(For his discovery of cyclic AMP, and for providing a comprehension of this key chemical mechanism, which regulates hormonal action.)

Robert Bruce Merrifield

(For a new concept and a new method for the synthesis of polypeptides and proteins.)

William F. Windle

(For his basic discoveries in the field of developmental biology.)

Har Gobind Khorana, Marshall Warren Nirenberg

(For their contributions toward deciphering the genetic code.)

Bernard Brodie

(For his extraordinary contributions to biochemical pharmacology.)

George Emil Palade

(For his fundamental contributions to the electron microscopy of biological materials.)

Robert W. Holley

(For determining for the first time the chemical structure of an amino acid transfer RNA.)

Renato Dulbecco, Harry Rubin

(For their fundamental contributions to our knowledge of the relationship between cancer and cancer-producing DNA and RNA viruses.)

Lyman C. Craig

(For his countercurrent distribution technique as a method for the separation of biologically significant compounds, and for isolation and structure studies of important antibiotics.)

Choh Hao Li

(For outstanding contributions to our understanding of the chemistry of pituitary hormones, including the identification and isolation of six hormones of the anterior pituitary gland.)

Ernst Ruska, James Hillier

(For their major contribution to the design, construction, development and perfection of the electron microscope.)

James V. Neel, Lionel Penrose

(For laying the foundation for the rapid development of research in human genetics; and, specifically, to Dr. Neel for his work on thalassemia and sickle cell anemia.)

Maurice Wilkins, James D. Watson, Francis Crick

(For their contribution in revealing the structure of the DNA model.)

Albert Coons

(For his contributions in immunology and specifically for his development of the fluorescent method of labelling proteins, a significant tool for the study of infection in human beings.)

Jules T. Freund

(For new findings in the field of immunology and allergy which have strengthened immunization procedures against such diseases as tuberculosis, malaria, rabies and poliomyelitis.)

Francis Peyton Rous

(For invaluable contributions of new knowledge about the causes of cancers, the source of antibodies and the mechanism of blood cell generation and destruction in human beings.)

Irvine Page

(For his many contributions to knowledge of the basic mechanisms of hypertension.)

Theodore Puck

(For development of original methods for pure culture of living mammalian cells as a basis for new research in their nutrition, growth, genetics and mutation.)

Alfred Hershey, Gerhard Schramm, Heinz Fraenkel-Conrat

(Joint award for their part in the discovery of the fundamental role of nucleic acid in the reproduction of viruses and in the transmission of inherited characteristics.)

Isaac Starr

(For fundamental contributions to knowledge of the heart and the circulation, and for his development of the first practical ballistocardiograph.)

Karl Friedrich Meyer, Francis O. Schmitt

(Joint award for pioneering studies of the biochemical components of connective tissues, contributing to new understanding of arthritis and rheumatic diseases.)

Karl Paul Link

(For fundamental contributions to our understanding of the mechanism of blood clotting and for the development of methods for the improved treatment of thromboembolic conditions.)

Carl J. Wiggers

(For his exceptional contributions to the understanding of cardiovascular physiology.)

Edwin B. Astwood

(For basic contributions to our knowledge of endocrine function, leading to the control of hyperthyroidism. )

Albert Szent-Györgyi

(For his distinguished research achievements in the field of cardiovascular diseases, including the discovery of actomyosin, the essential contractible element of muscle. )

John Franklin Enders

(For his achievements in the cultivation of the viruses of poliomyelitis, mumps and measles.)

Hans Adolf Krebs

(For his work as discoverer of the urea and citric acid cycles, which are basic to our understanding of how the body converts food into energy.)

Michael Heidelberger

(For decisive contributions in developing a new subscience\u2014the precise measuring tool of immunochemistry. )

George Wald

(For his outstanding achievements in explaining the physiology of vision in man.)

Frank Macfarlane Burnet

(For fundamentally modifying our knowledge of viruses and the inheritance of characteristics by viruses.)

Karl Friedrich Meyer

(For bacteriological research in parasitology. )

George Wells Beadle

(For outstanding and fundamental contributions to the understanding of genetic control of metabolic processes.)

André Frédéric Cournand

(For outstanding contributions to the physiology of the circulation in man and the diagnosis and treatment of heart disease.)

L.R. Christensen, William S. Tillett

(Joint award for the discovery and purification of the enzymes streptokinase and streptodornase.)

Vincent du Vigneaud

(For his basic studies of transmethylation as essential to animal nutrition; for his contributions to the structure and synthesis of biotin and penicillin.)

Selman Waksman, René Dubos

(Joint award for their achievement in studies of the antibiotic properties of soil bacteria; Dr. Waksman was also cited for his discovery of streptomycin.)

Oswald Avery

(For distinguished service through studies on the chemical constitution of bacteria.)

Homer Smith

(For distinguished research on cardiovascular and renal physiology.)

Carl Ferdinand Cori

(For his contributions to the knowledge of carbohydrate metabolism, which clarify the action of insulin in diabetes.)