2013

Sloan Research Fellowship, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation - Elena Gracheva, PhD
Battens Disease Research and Support Association Award - Sreeganga Chandra, PhD

2012

Young Investigator Award for SCA Research, National Ataxia Foundation  -Janghoo Lim, PhD
Sloan Research Fellowship, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation - Janghoo Lim, PhD
Bernard Katz Award by the Exocytosis and Endocytosis Subgroup of the Biophysical Society - Pietro De Camilli MD
NARSAD Young Investigator Award - Michael Higley, MD, PhD
March of Dimes, Basil O'Connor Starter Scholar Award - Michael Higley MD, PhD
Child Health Research Award, Charles H. Hood Foundation - Janghoo Lim, PhD
Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) - Pietro De Camill MD

2011 

Alfred P. Sloan Award - Michael Higley, MD PhD
Smith Family Award - Michael Higley, MD PhD
Esther and Jospeh Klingenstein Fellowship - Michael Higley, MD PhD
AAAS Early Career Award for Public Engagement with Science - Daniel Colón - Ramos, PhD
Ellison Medical Foundation Award-Pietro De Camilli MD

2011 Lasker Awards Honor Medical Research Pioneers

Franz-Ulrich Hartl and Arthur L. Horwich for discoveries concerning the cell’s protein-folding machinery, which helps proteins fold into their biologically active structures.

Tu Youyou for discovering artemisinin, the most effective treatment against malaria currently available.

The Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health for serving as a model research hospital where scientific advances are translated into innovative therapies.

New York, Sept. 12, 2011

– The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, which for 66 years has championed the greatest advances in medical research, announced today the winners of the 2011 Lasker Awards: Franz-Ulrich Hartl and Arthur L. Horwich for basic medical research, Tu Youyou for clinical research and The Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health for public service. The Lasker Awards – considered among the most respected science prizes in the world – honor visionaries whose insight and perseverance have led to dramatic advances that will prevent disease and prolong life.

The Lasker Awards, which carry an honorarium of $250,000 for each category, will be presented at a ceremony on Friday, September 23 in New York City. Since 1945, the Lasker Awards program has recognized the contributions of scientists, physicians, and public servants who have made major progress in understanding, diagnosing, treating, curing, and preventing human disease worldwide.

Hartl of the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Martinsreid, Germany and Horwich of Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut will receive the 2011 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award for discovering a cellular machine that controls how newly-manufactured proteins fold into their biologically active structures. Tu of the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, will receive the 2011 Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award for saving millions of lives by discovering artemisinin, the most effective treatment now available against malaria, one of the world’s most deadly diseases. The Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland will receive the Lasker~Bloomberg Public Service Award for serving as a model institution that has transformed scientific advances into innovative therapies and provided high-quality care to patients.

Of note, the Mary Woodard Lasker Public Service Award will now be known as “The Lasker~Bloomberg Public Service Award” in honor of Michael R. Bloomberg, philanthropist and Mayor of New York City. In naming Mr. Bloomberg the recipient of its 2009 Public Service Award, the Foundation cited his willingness to face down fierce opposition from vested interests to reduce tobacco use and promote healthy eating habits, helping to stop disease before it starts.

For more information: www.laskerfoundation.org

Picciotto is an authority on the molecular underpinnings of tobacco and alcohol abuse, depression, and eating behaviors, with a particular interest in the role of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs). These receptors are widely expressed in the central and peripheral nervous systems, and as their name implies, they can be activated either by the neurotransmitter acetylcholine (ACh) or by nicotine. In addition to a fundamental involvement in tobacco addiction, nAChRs have been implicated in Alzheimer's disease and in the dysfunctional sensory processing seen in schizophrenia. Picciotto has also done important studies on effects of nicotine exposure during gestation and adolescence on learning and memory, and on the neuropeptide galanin, which modulates ACh release and may exert a protective effect against addiction to drugs of abuse such as cocaine, amphetamines, and opiates.

Picciotto received her undergraduate degree in biological sciences from Stanford University in 1985, and a Ph.D. in molecular neurobiology at The Rockefeller University in New York City in 1992, where she worked in the Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience under Paul Greengard, Ph.D. She joined the Yale faculty in 1995, after completing a postdoctoral fellowship with Jean-Pierre Changeux, Ph.D., at the Institut Pasteur in Paris.

Also vice chair for basic science research in the Department of Psychiatry and associate director of the School of Medicine's M.D./Ph.D. Program, Picciotto serves on the National Advisory Council of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. In 2000 she was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering by President Clinton, and in 2007 she was honored with the Jacob P. Waletzky Award by the Society for Neuroscience.

The IOM, established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences, is a national resource for independent, scientifically informed analyses and recommendations on issues related to human health. Those elected to the institute have made significant contributions to the advancement of medical science, health care, and public health, and election is considered one of the highest honors in the health sciences.