Handicapping the Science Awards

Like show biz junkies monitoring the Golden Globe and Directors Guild awards for augurs of possible Academy nods, eggheads see the Gairdner Foundation and Albert Lasker Medical Research awards as Nobel predictors in the biomedical research categories. Consider this: Of the 255 International Gairdner Awards presented by the Toronto-based medical science foundation since 1959, 56 individual winners have bagged a Nobel in chemistry or physiology/medicine. As for the prize sometimes called “America’s Nobel,” the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation asserts that since 1962, more than half of Lasker Basic Medical Research Award winners have gone on to receive a Nobel Prize. Below, recent history.

2001

Leland H. Hartwell: Gairdner, 1992;

Lasker, 1998

R. Timothy Hunt: Nobel only

Paul M. Nurse: Gairdner, 1992; Lasker, 1998

2000

Arvid Carlsson: Gairdner, 1982

Paul Greengard: Nobel only

Eric R. Kandel: Gairdner, 1987;

Lasker, 1983

1999

Gunter Blobel: Gairdner, 1982; Lasker, 1993

1998

Robert F. Furchgott: Gairdner, 1991; Lasker, 1996

Louis J. Ignarro: Nobel only

Ferid Murad: Lasker, 1996

1997

Stanley B. Prusiner: Gairdner, 1993; Lasker, 1994

*

Compiled from the Gairdner Foundation, the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation and the Nobel Foundation