Jun 9, 2024
Roderick MacKinnon won the 1999 Lasker Award for elucidating the structure of potassium channels. His work provided the first molecular description of an ion selective channel and helped knock down what he called “psychological barriers” in the field. After MacKinnon, the structure of transmembrane ion channels went...
May 11, 2024
Lasker Laureate Daniel Koshland’s work changed our understanding of how enzymes interact with their substrates. In this 1998 interview with Robert Tjian, a fellow professor at Berkeley, Koshland talks about how the scientific community reacted to his “induced fit” model of enzyme-substrate interaction,...
Mar 4, 2024
“It wasn’t enough to sit at the table,” said Nancy Brinker, founder of the Susan G. Komen Foundation, “we wanted to be the table.” Brinker, a 2005 Lasker Laureate, tells the story of how a small startup nonprofit came to lead the effort to increase funding for breast cancer research.
When Nancy Brinker’s...
Feb 21, 2024
In May of 1995, a man was thrown from his horse during an equestrian competition and broke his neck, becoming paralyzed from the shoulders down. This would be a life-altering injury for anyone, but this man was Christopher Reeve, the actor who played Superman from 1978 to 1987. After his accident, Reeve used his...
Jan 30, 2024
Lasker Laureate Alec Jeffreys developed DNA fingerprinting, a technology that revolutionized human genetics and forensics diagnostics. He thought that it would take years to see his technique used outside of the lab. “But,” he says, “I could not have been more wrong.” Listen to Jeffreys tell the origin story...