Science / Medicine : 2 Win Lasker Awards for Genetic Research
A U.S. senator, two researchers who helped explain the chemical origins of life and a doctor who developed methadone treatment for heroin addicts have received the 1988 Albert Lasker Awards. The awards have been given for 43 years and have often foreshadowed the awarding of Nobel Prizes. Forty-six Lasker Award winners have gone on to win Nobels.
Thomas R. Cech of the University of Colorado, Boulder, and Phillip A. Sharp, director of the Cancer Research Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, shared the Lasker Basic Medical Research Award for their separate discoveries concerning the workings of RNA, one of the genetic building blocks on which life depends.
The Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award went to Dr. Vincent P. Dole of Rockefeller University in New York City for discoveries concerning the physiological basis of drug addiction and the development of methadone as an effective treatment.
Sen. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. (R-Conn.), who was defeated Nov. 8, was awarded the Lasker Public Service Award for his defense of health care programs threatened by crippling budget cuts and for establishing new programs.
