New York, September 13: The 2008 Albert Lasker Medical
Research Awards (http://www.laskerfoundation.org) were announced today.
First presented in 1946, the Lasker Awards are the nation's most
distinguished honor for outstanding basic and clinical medical research
discoveries and for lifetime contributions to medical science.

    The Lasker-DeBakey Award for Clinical Medical Research honors Akira
Endo, 74, of Biopharm Research Laboratories, Inc., Tokyo, who discovered
the first statin. Statins significantly lower LDL-cholesterol quantities in
the blood, thus dramatically reducing the risk of coronary heart disease, a
leading cause of death worldwide and the number one killer in the U.S.
Statins are now the most widely prescribed medications in the United
States, and benefit an estimated 30 million people worldwide.

    The Lasker-Koshland Award for Special Achievement in Medical Science,
awarded biennially, honors Stanley Falkow, 74, of the Stanford University
School of Medicine, for his many contributions to our knowledge of
disease-causing microbes. Falkow's discoveries have shed light on how
bacteria transmit antibiotic resistance and other traits to one another and
revealed the means by which they infect animal hosts and elicit illness. He
pioneered the field of molecular pathogenesis of infectious disease and
trained an impressive number of leading investigators in this discipline.

    The Awards will be presented at a luncheon ceremony on Friday,
September 26th at the Pierre Hotel in New York City. The Honorable Michael
Bloomberg, Mayor of the City of New York, will be the keynote speaker.

    Dr. Joseph L. Goldstein, recipient of the 1985 Lasker Award for Basic
Medical Research and the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1985, chairs the
24-member international scientific jury that selects recipients of the
Lasker Awards. He said that "the 2008 Lasker Awards honor investigators
whose open-minded thinking and experimentation challenged conventional
wisdom. Their work launched new fields of scientific research that have
fostered significant advances in the medical arena."

    The discovery of small regulatory ribonucleic acids (RNAs) by Victor
Ambros, David Baulcombe, and Gary Ruvkun broke open an entire new field.
Until that time, proteins, not RNAs, were thought to govern gene activity
in animal cells. "No one imagined that such tiny RNAs could perform useful
tasks. In fact, the notion that small RNAs could control gene expression
was unheard of," Goldstein said. "Now, laboratories all over the world
study hundreds of these RNAs." The tiny molecules control a vast number of
genes in plants as well as animals, and play roles in human health and
disease, including cancer, viral infections, and congestive heart failure.

    Until Akira Endo, treatment for high LDL-cholesterol levels-the bad
cholesterol-left much to be desired, a situation that resulted in an
unacceptably high incidence of coronary heart disease and premature death.
Dietary interventions and the few available drugs worked poorly and the
medications came with unwanted side effects. Many scientists also worried
that reducing cholesterol might be dangerous because the molecule carries
out essential jobs in the cell. "Endo believed in the potential benefits of
cholesterol-lowering drugs and toiled day and night for two years to find a
compound, the first statin, with that effect," Goldstein said. "Statins
have prolonged countless lives and revolutionized the prevention and
treatment of coronary heart disease." Today, millions of people worldwide
take statins to lower their LDL-cholesterol levels safely and markedly
reduce their risk of heart attacks.

    Early in his career, Falkow discerned that bacteria pass antibiotic
resistance among one another on circular pieces of DNA-a finding that paved
the way toward recombinant DNA technology. He then pioneered that new
method to probe the molecular mechanisms by which bacteria invade their
hosts, elude the immune system, and trigger disease. "Stanley Falkow has
spent the last five decades delving into the workings of disease-causing
microbes," Goldstein said. "A legend in his own time, Falkow is regarded as
one of the greatest microbe hunters ever and has trained more than 100
students, many of whom are making their own extraordinary contributions to
the field of bacterial pathogenesis."

    This year marks the first presentation of the newly renamed
Lasker-DeBakey and Lasker-Koshland Awards, honoring the late Michael
DeBakey and Daniel Koshland, Jr. "We are proud to link the Lasker name with
the names of these outstanding scientists and humanitarians, who dedicated
their lives to medical science and human health and were lifelong
supporters of the Lasker Foundation and the Lasker Awards," said Dr. Maria
C. Freire, President of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation.

    The Lasker Awards are given by the Albert & Mary Lasker Foundation. Dr.
Freire said that she and the Board of Directors are delighted at the
recommendations of the Lasker Jury, and congratulates the winners of this
year's Awards. "They follow the tradition of prior laureates in their
innovative scientific and medical research for the betterment of people
worldwide."

The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation

    The Lasker Foundation fosters the prevention and treatment of disease
and disabilities by honoring excellence in basic and clinical science,
educating the public, and advocating for support of medical research. This
year the Lasker Awards carry an honorarium of $300,000 for each Award
category. The laureates will receive a citation highlighting their
achievements and an inscribed statuette of the Winged Victory of
Samothrace, the Lasker Foundation's traditional symbol representing
humanity's victory over disease, disability, and death.

    Lasker Awards often presage future recognition by the Nobel committee,
so they have become popularly known as "America's Nobels." Seventy-five
Lasker laureates have received the Nobel Prize, including 27 in the last
two decades.

    Additional materials will be posted on Saturday, September 13th at
http://www.laskerfoundation.org and will include the full citations for each Award
category, plus photos and video of the Awardees.

SOURCE

The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation