Lasker Prize – 2022
The Lasker Prize was awarded for intercellular contacts, early diagnosis of Down syndrome and pandemic schedules
Sergey Zadvoryev, N+1
The Lasker Prize for 2022 was awarded to a group of biologists for the discovery of integrins, a doctor who found fetal DNA in the blood of a pregnant woman, and an engineer who created a data aggregator about the COVID-19 pandemic. The list of laureates is published on the Lasker Committee website.
The Lasker Foundation Award is one of the most influential medical scientific awards. Since 1946, it has been awarded by the Albert Lasker Foundation of the American multimillionaire for applied, fundamental medical research, for special achievements in medical sciences and for service to society (the last two nominations every two years).
There were 86 Nobel Prize laureates in the list of Lasker laureates for 75 years of its presentation, and among those who received the prize in the XXI century, almost half were awarded the Nobel Prize before or after receiving the Lasker Prize.
This year, the award for basic medical research was awarded to Richard O. Hynes from the UK, Erkka Ruoslahti from Finland and Timothy A. Springer from the USA "for the discovery of integrins — key intermediaries in cell-cell and cell-matrix adhesion in physiological conditions and in case of illness".
The discovery of cell adhesion molecules by Hines and Ruoslahti in the 1970s made it possible to describe how cells bind to the matrix surrounding them normally and during the development of oncological diseases. Springer's work focused on the exchange of signals between cells of the immune system. Subsequently, it turned out that proteins from the same integrin family are responsible for both processes. Now some methods of treatment of autoimmune and oncological diseases are based on manipulation with integrins.
The award for Clinical medical research was received by Yuk Ming Dennis Lo from Hong Kong "for non-invasive prenatal screening using fetal DNA". In the mid-1990s Lo showed that fetal DNA can be detected in the mother's blood as early as the seventh week of pregnancy. The study of fetal DNA helped to propose at the beginning of the XXI century a non-invasive test for the diagnosis of chromosomal disorders in the fetus (first of all, Down syndrome).
Finally, the Lasker Award for Public Service was awarded to Lauren Gardner from the USA "for creating the COVID-19 Dashboard, which set a new standard for providing socially significant information about the pandemic in real time." At the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, this Johns Hopkins University-based aggregator, developed by the Gardner Group, was the most authoritative and comprehensive source of data on the development of the pandemic. Ordinary people, politicians, and doctors followed the information about the number of sick, dead, recovered and vaccinated.
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