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. ...
