2004 Laskers awarded

Elwood Jensen, Ronald Evans, and Pierre Chambon will share the 2004 Mary and Albert Lasker Foundation Award for Basic Medical Research for their work on hormone receptors, the foundation announced earlier this week. Matthew Meselson will be the winner of the Special Achievement in Medical Science for his work both in molecular biology and public policy, and Charles Kelman will be the first posthumous Lasker winner as the recipient of the award for Clinical Medical Research for his work on cataract surgery.Jensen, Evans, and Chambon revolutionized scientists' understanding of how hormones work. Jensen, currently a professor of cancer research at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, and former director of the Ben May Cancer Research Institute, was the first to show that hormones bind to cellular receptors that regulate gene expression, rather than being metabolized through redox reactions in the cell. In 1968, working with estrogen, he showed that these hormone receptor complexes migrate to cell nuclei, where they bind to and activate specific genes. Later, he devised a method to determine the presence of estrogen receptors in breast cancer cells and determined that women with fewer receptors were less likely to respond to treatments and surgeries removing or inhibiting estrogen.Jensen's work paved the way for Evans' and Chambon's later discovery of a superfamily of structurally related nuclear receptors. In the mid 1980s, Evans—now a molecular and developmental biologist at the Salk Institute in San Diego—found the glucocorticoid receptor gene, while Chambon—now a cellular and developmental biologist at the Institute for Genetics and Cellular and Molecular Biology in Strasbourg, France—located the estrogen receptor gene. In 1986, the two researchers, working independently, identified the same receptor for retinoic acid, a vitamin A derivative. A total of 48 such receptors have now been identified, all of which operate by the same mechanism that these researchers identified.Kelman's award is for his development in the 1960s of phacoemulsification, a technique that allows surgeons to use a small incision to remove the lens during cataract surgery. Before Kelman developed his technique, the surgery was invasive, took several hours, and required an extended hospital stay. Full recovery could take several weeks, and patients were required to wear thick glasses to compensate for vision loss. With phacoemulsification, however, the procedure takes less than 10 minutes, and patients regain their eyesight almost immediately. By 1996, phacoemulsification was being used in more than 97% of cataract removals. Kelman died of lung cancer in June 2004 at age 74 in Boca Raton, Fla.Meselson, a Harvard University molecular biologist, is most well known for the 1958 Meselson–Stahl experiment, in which he and Franklin Stahl demonstrated that DNA replication is semi-conservative. But Meselson made other equally groundbreaking discoveries further into his career. He joined Sydney Brenner and Francois Jacob in their 1961 discovery of messenger RNA, and in 1968 he identified restriction enzymes in Escherichia coli. His current work focuses the role of sexual reproduction in evolution through studies on the asexually reproducing bdelloid rotifers.Meselson's advocacy against chemical and biological weapons began in 1963 and continued throughout the Vietnam War. During the 1980s, he debunked the theory that the Soviets were contaminating crops in Southeast Asia by proving that the supposed "yellow rain" was actually honeybee droppings. In the early 1990s, he proved that the source of the Sverdlovsk anthrax breakout was not contaminated meat, as the Soviet government claimed, but rather a leak from a chemical and biological weapons facility.Most recently, Meselson cofounded the Harvard Sussex program with his colleague Julian Robinson at the University of Sussex. Together, they drafted a treaty that would make the use of chemical and biological weapons an international crime. If the treaty is passed, Meselson told The Scientist, anyone who uses or orders the use of such weapons could be prosecuted by any nation that signs the treaty, which he said will "promote closer cooperation between governments" in combating these kinds of threats.These researchers will be honored at an awards ceremony at the Pierre Hotel in New York City this coming Friday (October 1). Meselson will receive $25,000, and Evans, Chambon, and Jensen will share $50,000. At the request of Kelman's widow, his prize of $50,000 will be give to the International Retinal Research Foundation in his memory.Clarification (posted September 29, 2004): When originally posted, this story omitted Elwood Jensen's current position at the University of Cincinnati.

2004 Laskers awarded

Work on hormone receptors, cataract surgery, and public policy honored

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