Lasker Awards Given for Work in

Lasker Awards Given for add Genetics, Anesthesia and Promoting Women in Science

The Lasker Awards, which are among the nation’s most prestigious prizes in medicine were awarded on Tuesday to a Scottish veterinarian who developed the drug propofol, two scientists who discovered the hidden influence of genetic packing called histones and a researcher who additionally to doing groundbreaking add RNA biology, paving the way for a replacement generation of female scientists.

The awards are given by the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation and carry a prize of $250,000 for every three categories.

They're sometimes called the “American Nobels” because 87 of the Lasker recipients have gone on to win the Nobel prize.

Dr. John B. Glen, He developed the drug propofol, now a widely used anesthetic that has transformed surgery.

Dr. Glen, the recipient of the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award is merely the second veterinarian to win a Lasker in 73 years, consistent with the inspiration.

A pharmaceutical career was an unlikely path for Dr. Glen, but the very fact that he was interested in anesthesia was no surprise: for years, he had taught the topic to students at Glasgow University’s school.

“I was anesthetizing dogs, cats, horses — whatever animals came over,” Dr. Glen said in an interview. Once he used anesthesia on a pelican to repair its beak.

When he arrived within the 1970s at ICI Pharmaceuticals, later acquired by AstraZeneca, Dr. Glen had turned his attention to humans and was on the search for a replacement for thiopentone, a widely used anesthetic that quickly put patients to sleep but often made them groggy afterward.

In lab tests on mice, he and his colleagues discovered that one among the company’s existing compounds, propofol appeared to work also as thiopentone but wore off quickly, without the hangover effect of the sooner drug.

Propofol was approved in 1986 within The United Kingdom and within us three years later.

The drug referred to as the “milk of amnesia” due to its milky consistency has since been employed by many many patients and is credited with resulting in the rapid expansion of outpatient surgery because patients recover so quickly.

In 2009, propofol’s reputation took successful after Michael Jackson’s personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray administered a dose of the drug to the singer.

Dr. Murray was convicted in 2011 on charges of involuntary manslaughter, and Dr. Glen said he followed the trial closely.

“It was never intended to be utilized in that way,” Dr. Glen said.

But if the drug’s broader success, he said, “I’m delighted that it's become so widely used.”

Joan Argetsinger Steitz, She became a champion of girls in her field and trained nearly 200 future scientists.

Dr. Steitz, the recipient of the Lasker-Koshland Award for Special Achievement in Medical Science said winning the award is especially significant because it signals how far she has come since her days as an undergraduate lab technician within the early 1960s.

“When I began being excited by science — but seeing that there weren’t any women scientists — I assumed I had no prospects whatsoever,” she said in an interview.

“The one thing that I actually wanted was to possess the respect of my peers for the scientific contributions I made, and for my participation within the scientific community.”

More than four decades later, Dr. Steitz has her own lab at Yale University and her work has led to many breakthroughs within the understanding of RNA, a kind of molecule that carries out many tasks within the cell, like helping to read the knowledge in our genes.

One of her biggest discoveries was particles made from RNA molecules and proteins, known as small nuclear ribonucleoproteins, or snRNPs for brief.

They’re scattered throughout cells and among other things, they assist cut messenger RNA into pieces, some of which get pasted back together.

This process, called splicing is important to the process of creating proteins from genes.

This discovery led to a whole new field of research in cell biology.

She was an author of a 2007 National Academy of Sciences report that recommended specific steps for maximizing the potential of girls in academic science and engineering.

Since then, she gives talks about the way to encourage more women in science and is additionally being recognized for her work as a mentor.

She has trained almost 200 students and postdoctoral fellows, consistent with the Lasker foundation.

Of the 360 papers that have come from her laboratory, 60 don't include her name, “a gesture of generosity that reflects her belief that students and postdoctoral fellows who work completely independently should be allowed to publish on their own,” consistent with the Lasker foundation’s citation.

In an interview, Dr. Steitz downplayed this detail.

She said in her youth running her own lab, she frequently left her name off papers because she was following within the scientific tradition she had learned as a young researcher.

As for her role as an activist, “I kind of feel a touch embarrassed by that, because there are so many women that have done such a lot more,” she said.

What she has done, she said is to be “a good citizen and check out to assist women and other underrepresented people to satisfy their potential.”

C. David Allis and Michael Grunstein They took a replacement check out a protein once considered the “packing material” of DNA.

From opposite ends of the country, Dr. Allis, whose lab is at The Rockefeller University in New York, and Dr. Grunstein, at the University of California, l. a. pioneered work that elevated the importance of histones, proteins within the chromosomes that previously had gone overlooked.

They're the recipients of  the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award.