New Delhi: The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation on Tuesday announced the winner of the 2018 Lasker Awards. Given across four categories, the annual honour’s recipients for 2018 are Joan Steitz for the Lasker-Koshland special achievement award in medical science, John B. Glen for the Lasker-DeBakey clinical medical research award and C. David Allis and Michael Grunstein for the Albert Lasker basic medical research award.
Steitz, 77, the sole woman recipient this time, is a professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale University. After a PhD in biochemistry from Harvard University, she discovered that a particular RNA component of the ribosome adheres to messenger RNA target sites using complementary base-pairing, a major discovery.
According to the Lasker Foundation, the 2018 Lasker-Koshland Award for special achievement in medical science honours an individual whose lifetime contributions have engendered among her colleagues the deepest feelings of awe and respect. Regarding the honour given to Steitz, it said: “For four decades of leadership in biomedical science – exemplified by pioneering discoveries in RNA biology, generous mentorship of budding scientists, and vigorous and passionate support of women in science.”
One of Steitz’s significant discoveries was that small nuclear ribonucleoproteins, particles made up of RNA molecules and proteins, aid in putting back cut messenger RNA together. This process, called splicing, is essential to make proteins from genes, and Steitz’s discovery led to an entirely new field of research in cell biology.
Her laboratory has produced about 360 papers, but Steitz’s name does not figure in 60 of them – “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,” according to the Lasker foundation’s citation.
Steitz has also advocated for greater gender diversity in science and co-authored a National Academy of Sciences report on bias and other barriers to women in STEM fields, the Scientific American said.
According to the New York Times, Steitz downplayed the detail in an interview and when it came to her role as an activist, she said, “I sort of feel a little embarrassed by that, because there are so many women that have done so much more.”
The Lasker Awards are often considered to be precursors to win the Nobel Prize in physiology/medicine (to be announced in the first week of October). Over 80 Lasker Award recipients have also won the Nobel Prize.
The 2018 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award was given to John B. Glen “for the discovery and development of propofol, a chemical whose rapid action and freedom from residual effects have made it the most widely used agent for induction of anaesthesia in patients throughout the world.”
The procedure of anaesthetising patients is a crucial medical practice during surgical procedures but is often accompanied by unwanted side effects and complications. During his time at ICI Pharmaceuticals in the 1970s, Glen’s team was looking for medication that could potentially replace the then popular and widely-used anaesthetic thiopentone, with a drug that allowed a low recovery time without unpleasant side effects. In addition to finding an active ingredient, the team also needed to find a delivery vehicle, and that introduced several impediments in the process.
The result was the discovery of propofol, an anaesthetic that acts quickly with minimal side effects.
Carrying an honorarium of $250,000, the Lasker Awards are among the most prestigious in medical sciences in the US.
C. David Allis of the Rockefeller University, New York, and Michael Grunstein, professor of biological chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles, shared the 2018 Albert Lasker basic medical research award “for discoveries elucidating how gene expression is influenced by chemical modification of histones – the proteins that package DNA within chromosomes.”
Histones are basic proteins. They are positively charged, which lets them associate with the negatively charged DNA. Some histones function as spools for the thread-like DNA to wrap around.
Grunstein’s work has shown that histones are not just structural components but also influence gene activity in living cells. The work laid the foundation for understanding the crucial role played by certain amino acids in this process. “Because abnormal development can lead to diseases and other health disorders, the discovery created new avenues for research and treatment,” the UCLA Newsroom said.
David Allis found an enzyme that attaches a specific chemical group to a particular amino acid in histones. The histone-modifying enzyme, whose biochemical abilities had dodged researchers for years until then, turned out to be an established gene co-activator, according to the Lasker Foundation.
“This work has taken off in a way I would never have thought possible when we began our studies of histones in the 1990s,” Allis was quoted as saying.