Médecins Sans Frontières received the 2015 Lasker Prize, jointly with 3 researchers. An award that rewards bold initiatives against Ebola.
It is the antechamber of the Nobel Prize for Medicine, sometimes called the “American Nobel”. Three American researchers and the NGO Médecins Sans Frontières yesterday became co-winners of the prestigious Albert Lasker Prize 2015. In a press release published Tuesday evening, the officials of this Foundation specify that they reward the non-governmental organization in the “public service” category for “its bold initiatives” against the recent Ebola epidemic in West Africa and “its effective and sustained actions on the front line in the face of a health emergency”. In particular, it has always tried to strengthen its teams on site as much as possible.
The NGO has already won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1999 for the humanitarian work carried out on several continents.
$ 250,000 reward
For the other winners who will also receive a prize of $ 250,000, we must turn to geneticist Evelyn Witkin, 94, retired professor at Rutgers University (New Jersey, northeast) and Dr. Stephen Elledge, 59 years old, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School (Massachusetts, northeast). Both were awarded in the “basic research” category for their advances in the mechanism of DNA protection and repair in all living organisms.
Award-winning work on immunotherapy
Finally, Dr. James Allison, 67, professor of immunology at the Cancer Center at the University of Texas (Austin), received the Lasker Prize in the category “clinical research”, for the discovery and development of ‘immunotherapy that mobilizes the immune system to fight cancer cells.
This breakthrough has made it possible to develop a new class of treatments which have been shown to be effective against, in particular, melanoma, a very aggressive cancer of the skin which had previously left medicine powerless, killing 50% of patients in less than a year. after diagnosis. Today, patients have remissions of more than ten years.
The Lasker Awards will be presented to the winners at a ceremony on September 18 in New York City.
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