Steitz wins Lasker lifetime achievement award
The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation announced today the recipients of the 2018 Lasker Awards. Among the four recipients was Joan Steitz, a professor of biophysics and biochemistry at Yale University, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators and a member of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
Joan SteitzAlbert and Mary Lasker Foundation
Steitz won the Lasker-Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science “for four decades of leadership in biomedical science — exemplified by pioneering discoveries in RNA biology, generous mentorship of budding scientists, and vigorous and passionate support of women in science,” according to a news release from the foundation.
Over her pioneering career in RNA biology, for which she won the ASBMB’s Herbert Tabor Research Award in 2015, Steitz has been known as a generous mentor to young scientists and an ardent voice for inclusion in the scientific community. (Watch her Tabor award lecture here.)
Steitz, a former member of the ASBMB Council and a past winner of the society’s Lipmann lectureship, will accept her Lasker award Sept. 24.
The other 2018 Lasker winners were:
- David Allis and Michael Grunstein, who won the Basic Medical Research Award for their studies of histone modifications and gene expression. (Allis was an ASBMB annual meeting plenary lecturer in 2015. Watch his lecture here. Also, see this ASBMB Today story about diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, or DIPG, a deadly pediatric brain cancer. Allis is quoted.)
- John B. Glen, who won the Clinical Research Award for the discovery and development of the anesthetic propofol.
Enjoy reading ASBMB Today?
Become a member to receive the print edition four times a year and the digital edition weekly.
Learn moreGet the latest from ASBMB Today
Enter your email address, and we’ll send you a weekly email with recent articles, interviews and more.
Latest in People
People highlights or most popular articles
Awards for Maquat and Gohil; Sobrado named biochem chair
Vishal Gohil is honored for work with copper. Lynn Maquat receives two awards for RNA research. Pablo Sobrado is named endowed chair of biochemistry.
What seems dead may not be dead
Vincent Tagliabracci will receive the Earl and Thressa Stadtman Distinguished Scientist Award at the ASBMB Annual Meeting, April 12–15 in Chicago.
'You can't afford to be 15 years behind the parasite'
David Fidock will receive the Alice and C.C. Wang Award in Molecular Parasitology at the 2025 ASBMB Annual Meeting, April 12–15 in Chicago.
Elucidating how chemotherapy induces neurotoxicity
Andre Nussenzweig will receive the Bert and Natalie Vallee Award at the 2025 ASBMB Annual Meeting, April 12–15 in Chicago.
ASBMB committees welcome new members
Committee members serve terms of two to five years, and a number of new members have joined. We also thank those whose terms have ended.
Curiosity turned a dietitian into a lipid scientist
Judy Storch will receive the Avanti Award in Lipids at the 2025 ASBMB Annual Meeting, April 12–15 in Chicago.