Habener, Mosjov and Knudsen win the Lasker award

To surprisingly little fanfare, Joel Habener, Lotte Bjerre Knudsen, and Svetlana Mojsov have won the Lasker award – formally known as the "Lasker-Debakey Clinical Medical Research Award".

Outside of the Nobel prize, this is one of the most coveted awards in medical research, earned by pioneers who have truly moved the dial for humanity as a whole, and medicine.

GLP-1-based therapy for obesity - Lasker Foundation

Joel Habener, Lotte Bjerre Knudsen, Svetlana Mojsov

Lasker FoundationLasker Admin

You can go back to work as early as 1993 to see Joel Habener's involvement with GLP-1 research:

Pancreatic beta-cells are rendered glucose-competent by the insulinotropic hormone glucagon-like peptide-1(7-37) - Nature

Nature - Pancreatic beta-cells are rendered glucose-competent by the insulinotropic hormone glucagon-like peptide-1(7-37)

NatureGeorge G. Holz IV IV

Along with patent filings back in 1996:

US5545618A - GLP-1 analogs useful for diabetes treatment - Google Patents

The invention provides effective analogs of the active GLP-1 peptides, 7-34, 7-35, 7-36, and 7-37, which have improved characteristics for treatment of diabetes Type II. These analogs have amino acid substitutions at positions 7-10 and/or are truncated at the C-terminus and/or contain various other amino acid substitutions in the basic peptide. The analogs may either have an enhanced capacity to stimulate insulin production as compared to glucagon or may exhibit enhanced stability in plasma as compared to GLP-1 (7-37) or both. Either of these properties will enhance the potency of the analog as a therapeutic. Analogs having D-amino acid substitutions in the 7 and 8 positions and/or N-alkylated or N-acylated amino acids in the 7 position are particularly resistant to degradation in vivo.

Google PatentsØRSKOV et al.

Who has won the Lasker award in the past?

The Wikipedia is the best place to find a definitive listing of the recipients of the Lasker award (some posthumously), but there are a couple worth mentioning right from the outset of the award being given.

John Friend Mahoney (Blood group system, transfusions)

John Friend Mahoney - Wikipedia

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John was one of the people to receive the Lasker award in 1947 along with Karl Landsteiner (posthumously), Alexander S. Wiener, and Philip Levine. All three scientists have incredibly work under their belt.

Thomas Francis Jr (Influenza Vaccine)

Thomas Francis Jr. - Wikipedia

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Thomas was awarded the Lasker award in 1947 (the second year it was awarded)

Who's won the Lasker award recently?

There are many incredibly impressive winners of the Lasker award recently as well, but here we highlight a few:

Katalin Karikó

Katalin Karikó - Wikipedia

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Katalin was awarded the Lasker prize for her instrumental work in enabling mRNA vaccines – using mRNA for protein placement. She was awarded the Lasker award in 2021.

Denis Lo Yuk-ming (non-invasive Prenatal testing, Liquid biopsy)

Dennis Lo - Wikipedia

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Denis was awarded the Lasker prize in 2022 for his extensive work with prenatal testing and detection/biopsy.

James Fujimoto (OCT imaging)

James Fujimoto - Wikipedia

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James (along with David Huang and Eric A. Swanson) were recognized for creating Optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging – a technique that creates stunningly detailed and multi-layered scans of tissue, at micrometer resolution.

You can read much more about the prize on Wikipedia:

Lasker–DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award - Wikipedia

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