The 2022 Lasker Prize was announced, and Professor Lu Yuming's non-invasive prenatal testing won the Clinical Medical Research Award

On September 28, 2022, the Lasker Awards, an important award in the field of biomedicine, were announced, and this year's Lasker Awards have three awards: the Basic Medical Research Award, the Clinical Medical Research Award, and the Public Service Award
.

The Lasker Prize enjoys a high reputation in the field of life sciences and medicine, and is known as the "wind vane" of the Nobel Prize
.
Of all the winners of the prize, more than 80 have also won Nobel Prizes
.
Tu Youyou, China's first Nobel laureate in science and winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, also won the Lasker Prize
in 2011.

Basic Medical Research Award

Reasons for the award: Richard O.
Hynes (MIT), Erkki Ruoslahti (Sanford Burnham Prebys), Timothy A.
Springer (Boston Children's Hospital/Harvard Medical School) These three scientists received the Lasker Prize for Basic Medical Research for their discovery of the role
of integrins (key mediators of the cell matrix) and cell-to-cell adhesion in physiology and disease.

Richard O.
Hynes and Erkki Ruoslahti have discovered a cell surface-related protein that helps cells adhere to the surrounding material, the extracellular matrix (ECM
).
Subsequently, the researchers captured a receptor
that binds to the protein.
On the other hand, in seemingly unrelated studies, Timothy A.
Springer discovered that transmembrane proteins are the basis for
immune cells interacting with their target cells.

Integrins are a class of transmembrane proteins that contain a α subunit and a β subunit, both of which belong to a family
of proteins with co-evolutionary ancestors.
α and individual members of the ß family bind in different ways to form 24 mammalian heterodimeres, which physically bind
to a variety of molecules.
In ECM, these binding partners include collagen, laminin, and other RGD-containing proteins such as fibronectin and fibrinogen
.
On cells, these chaperones include proteins such as ICAM-1, which are located on the surface
of white blood cell and vascular cells.
The first identified integrin, platelet receptors, promotes coagulation; LFA-1 helps immune cells fight infection
in a number of ways.

And when researchers realize that the proteins now called integrins belong to the same molecular family, these initially different lines of thought converge and develop
rapidly.
Integrin family members play a central role in an amazing array of processes in embryos and fully formed organisms, and they provide an intervention point
for the treatment of numerous diseases.

Clinical Medical Research Award

Reason for the award: Yuk Ming Dennis Lo (Lu Yuming, University of Chinese, Hong Kong) received the Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award
.
He found fetal DNA in his mother's blood, which led to the development of non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT)
for Down syndrome.

In 1997, Lu discovered the presence of free fetal DNA in the peripheral blood of pregnant women, which was the first time in the world to prove this phenomenon
.
The important result, "Presence of fetal DNA in maternal plasma and serum," was published in the leading medical journal The Lancet
that year.
In 2008, Lu Yuming's team published the NIPT technology
that is now widely used.

Through this work, Lu Yuming sparked a medical revolution that saved millions of women from a procedure that increased the risk of miscarriage, with profound medical implications
in areas far from chromosomal abnormalities.
The progress and clinical applications promoted by Lu Yuming include Rh factor evaluation and innovation, which are also promising
in cancer, transplantation and other fields.

Lasker~Bloomberg Public Service Award

Winner: Lauren Gardner (Johns Hopkins University) won the 2022 Lasker Public Service Award for creating the Covid-19 Dashboard, which sets a new standard
for the real-time dissemination of authoritative public health data.

By launching this global Covid-19 surveillance tool, Lauren Gardner provided accessible and reliable information on the spread of an emerging infectious disease, thus filling gaps in the international public health system and establishing a model
to emulate.

Lauren Gardner, who grew up in a family of science advocates, said: "When my PhD student Ensheng Dong and I launched the dashboard in January 2020, we didn't know how far Covid-19 would go, but even then, I understood the value of
science and data.
”

Note: Image source Lasker Prize official website

Introduction to the Lasker Prize

The Albert Lasker Prize for Medical Research is another top prize
in the field of physiology and medicine in addition to the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.
Founded in 1945 by Albert Lasker, a well-known American advertising manager and philanthropist known as the "father of modern advertising", and his wife Mary Woodard Lasker, it aims to recognize scientists, doctors and public service personnel who have made outstanding contributions to the field of medicine, drawing public attention
to the importance of scientific support.
The award was originally divided into the Basic Medicine Award, the Clinical Medicine Award and the Public Service Award, and later added a Special Contribution Award
.
To date, more than 300 people have won the Lasker Prize
.