On Sept. 10, 2012, the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, which for 67 years has championed the greatest advances in medical research, announced the winners of the 2012 Lasker Awards: Michael Sheetz, James Spudich and Ronald Vale for basic medical research, Roy Calne and Thomas E. Starzl for clinical research, and Donald D. Brown and Thomas Maniatis for special achievement. The Lasker Awards — considered one of the most respected science prizes in the world — honor visionaries whose insight and perseverance have led to dramatic advances that will prevent disease and prolong life.

The Lasker Awards, which carry an honorarium of $250,000 for each category, will be presented at a ceremony on Friday, September 21 in New York City. Since 1945, the Lasker Awards program has recognized the contributions of scientists, physicians, and public servants who have made major progress in understanding, diagnosing, treating, curing, and preventing human disease worldwide.

Sheetz (Columbia University, New York), Spudich (Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, California), and Vale (University of California, San Francisco) will receive the 2012 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award for discovering machine-like cytoskeletal motor proteins that transport cargoes within cells. Calne (University of Cambridge, England) and Starzl (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) will receive the 2012 Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award for developing life-saving liver transplantation techniques. Brown (Carnegie Institution for Science, Baltimore) and Maniatis (Columbia University, New York) will receive the Lasker~Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science for making fundamental discoveries about the nature of genes while fostering the careers of young scientists and spreading cutting-edge technologies throughout the global scientific community.