The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation also announced on Sept 6 that it was giving its public service award to Planned Parenthood. Each award includes a $250,000 honorarium.
The foundation’s clinical research award is shared by Dr. Douglas Lowy and John Schiller of the U.S. National Cancer Institute.
In the early 1990s they began work that would eventually lead to vaccines against human papillomavirus, or HPV, which causes cervical cancer and some other cancers.
They showed that a particular viral protein could provoke a strong immune response against the virus.
The Lasker award for basic medical research went to Michael N. Hall of the Biozentrum Institute at the University of Basel in Switzerland.
Starting in the 1990s, he discovered and studied proteins that serve as a master regulator of cell growth, one that responds to the availability of nutrients.
Defects related to those “TOR” proteins contribute to diabetes and cancer, and scientists are developing anti-cancer drugs based on them, the foundation said.
In awarding its public service prize to Planned Parenthood, the foundation said it had provided “essential health services and reproductive care to millions of women for more than a century.”
Laskar Awards: Know More- The Lasker Awards have been awarded annually since 1945 to living persons who have made major contributions to medical science or who have performed public service on behalf of medicine.
The four main awards are:
- Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award.
- Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award.
- Lasker-Bloomberg Public Service Award
- Lasker-Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science
