SIGNAL TRANSDUCTION — the process that enables each cell to receive and respond to signals from extracellular messengers like hormones, growth factors, and neurotransmitter molecules, allowing cells within an organism to communicate with each other—was discovered and elucidated in work done by the four recipients of this year's Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Awards. The winner of the Clinical Research Award has made discoveries of primary importance in endocrinology, and the Public Service Award goes to an acclaimed physician—biomedical writer.
Articles by most of this year's recipients appear in this issue of JAMA on pages 1808-1840. The winners are:
Edwin G. Krebs, MD, senior investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, "for his seminal finding that phosphorylation activates major enzymes in cells, and for perceiving the profound importance of protein kinase enzymes." Discoveries made by Krebs (who is unrelated to Nobel laureate Hans