The researchers who will receive this year's Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology on Dec 10 in Stockholm—Michael S. Brown, MD, and Joseph L. Goldstein, MD—also received Albert Lasker Medical Research Awards this week.
Goldstein, 45, and Brown, 44, both of whom are Paul J. Thomas professors of genetics and medicine and Regental (a designation given only to Nobel laureates) professors at the University of Texas Health Science Center, Dallas, were honored for finding that patients with familial hypercholesterolemia totally lack, or are deficient in, receptors for low density lipoproteins, and for isolating the responsible gene. The Lasker citation refers to their work in "elucidating cholesterol metabolism, delineating the process of receptormediated endocytosis, and opening new approaches to the treatment of atherosclerosis and other major diseases."
This week's ceremonies marked the 40th anniversary of presentation of the Lasker Awards. First presented in 1945 by Mary Lasker (who still presides over