2009 Lasker Awards announced

linkurl:John Gurdon;http://www.gurdon.cam.ac.uk/gurdon.html of Cambridge University and linkurl:Shinya Yamanaka;http://www.gladstone.ucsf.edu/gladstone/site/yamanaka/ of Kyoto University and the University of California, San Francisco, will share the 2009 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award for their contributions to stem cell research -- specifically, for their work in reverting adult cells to an embryonic-like state, the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation announced today (September 14).

Written byJef Akst

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John Gurdon (top) and
Shinya Yamanaka (bottom)
Image: The Lasker Foundation

A trio of researchers, Brian J. Druker of Oregon Health & Science University, Nicholas B. Lydon, formerly of Novartis, and Charles L. Sawyers of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, will receive this year's Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award for the development of imatinib (Gleevec), a tyrosine kinase inhibitor that stunts cell growth in chronic myelogenous leukemia and other cancers. The 2009 Mary Woodard Lasker Public Service Award will recognize New York mayor Michael Bloomberg for his policy decisions discouraging tobacco use and encouraging healthy eating. Gurdon and Yamanaka's contributions "are fundamental and enormously influential to both the basic scientific research field and the public interests," molecular biologist Xiangru Xu of linkurl:Yale University;http://www.yale.edu/ wrote in an email to The Scientist. "It's a great and well deserved honor for Shinya and John," Harvard researcher linkurl:Kevin Eggan;http://golgi.harvard.edu/Eggan/index.asp said in an email. "They book end the field of reprogramming beautifully and are fully deserving." Gurdon, who has published more than 200 articles, according to ISI, began his work on reprogramming DNA from adult frogs in the middle of the 20th century. By transferring the nucleus of adult skin or intestinal cells into an egg, Gurdon generated new tadpoles. His work "ignited" the stem cell field, according to the linkurl:Lasker Foundation,;http://www.laskerfoundation.org/press/pdf/2009pressrelease.pdf eventually leading to the creation of Dolly -- the first-ever animal cloned from a differentiated mammalian adult cell. In 2006, Yamanaka further advanced the field of nuclear reprogramming by using retroviruses to introduce four transcription factors to successfully regress skin cells from adult mice into pluripotent stem cells. Yamanaka's technique differed from Gurdon's in that it did not require the DNA to be transplanted into an egg, but induced pluripotency in the adult cell itself, creating so-called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from which many other tissue types could be generated. His 2006 Cell study in which he first described the technique in mice fibroblasts has been cited 950 times, according to ISI. In the three years since that paper, numerous labs have churned out countless research publications, further refining the techniques for creating iPS cells and demonstrating the myriad clinical uses for such therapies. "Gurdon's contribution has shaped the field for the past few decades, while Yamanaka's is destined to shape the field for decades to come," stem cell biologist George Daley of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Children's Hospital Boston said in an email to The Scientist. The recipients will receive their awards on Friday, October 2, at the Pierre Hotel in New York City. Check out videos of all the award winners on the linkurl:Lasker Foundation's Web site.;http://www.laskerfoundation.org/
**__Related stories:__***linkurl:One step to human pluripotency;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55949/
[28th August 2009]*linkurl:Single-factor stem cells;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55399/
[5th February 2009]*linkurl: Stem cell reprogramming clues revealed;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/24307/
[11th August 2006]*linkurl:The Clone Reimagined;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/15420/
[25th April 2005]

Meet the Author

Jef Akst

Jef (an unusual nickname for Jennifer) got her master’s degree from Indiana University in April 2009 studying the mating behavior of seahorses. After four years of diving off the Gulf Coast of Tampa and performing behavioral experiments at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, she left research to pursue a career in science writing. As The Scientist's managing editor, Jef edited features and oversaw the production of the TS Digest and quarterly print magazine. In 2022, her feature on uterus transplantation earned first place in the trade category of the Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers.

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