Albert Lasker
Basic Medical Research Award
Ludwik Gross
Howard Skipper
Sol Spiegelman
Howard Temin
Ludwik Gross
For his original discovery of leukemia- and cancer-inducing viruses in mammals, and the elucidation of their biology and epidemiology.
Dr. Gross was the first to discover a leukemia-inducing virus in mice. He successfully employed this virus—the RNA-containing Gross leukemia virus (GLV)—in extensive experiments which illuminated several novel aspects of these viruses.
His discoveries include the vertical transmission of these viruses from one generation of animal to the next; the activation of the viruses by extraneous stimuli, such as radiation; and the role of the immune system of the host animal in preventing the induction of the disease with these viruses.
Dr. Gross also isolated from leukemic mouse extracts a DNA-containing virus capable of inducing parotid tumors in mice. He demonstrated that this virus—which subsequently was designated polyoma virus (PV)—could induce various cancers in the mouse.
The experiments of Dr. Gross, conducted with great persistence despite severe technical difficulties, opened the field of mammalian tumor virology, and laid the foundations for the subsequent discovery by others of cancer-inducing viruses in animals of various species ranging from rodents to the higher primates.
To Dr. Gross, who opposed the prolonged skepticism accorded his findings with tenacious experimentation and insight, and who succeeded in changing the course of medicine, this 1974 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award is given.
Howard Skipper
For his contributions to biology, biochemistry and pharmacology, which have laid the foundations for the chemotherapy of cancer.
Howard Skipper's studies of the metabolic actions of anticancer drugs in normal and tumor-bearing animals revealed the mechanism of inhibition of nucleic acid synthesis by folic acid antagonists. He developed quantitative biological tumor models to elucidate the kinetics of tumor inhibition and regression, demonstrated the curability of cancer in several animal tumor model systems, and first introduced the concept of total cell kill.
Dr. Skipper's development of the principles of combination chemotherapy and the demonstration that many combinations of anticancer drugs have less than cumulative toxicity for normal cells have had a profound effect on clinical studies of cancer and on the improvement of cancer chemotherapy through optimal dose scheduling.
His experimental work elucidated the logic of chemotherapy as an adjunct to surgery and has delineated the idea of prompt eradication of all evidence of disease.
For Dr. Skipper's multidisciplinary contributions and insights which have increased our understanding of the biological, biochemical and pharmacological interrelationships between tumor cells, normal cells and effective anticancer drugs and which have laid the foundation for the present advances in cancer chemotherapy, this 1974 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award is given.
Sol Spiegelman
For his contributions to molecular biology, including techniques of molecular hybridization and the first synthesis of an infectious nucleic acid.
Sol Spiegelman's outstanding contributions to molecular biology include the first successful synthesis of an infectious viral ribonucleic acid (Q beta phage RNA), his many contributions to the development of nucleic acid hybridization techniques, and the application of these techniques to basic problems in cellular and viral biology.
His successful synthesis of an infectious viral nucleic acid demonstrated that faithful copies of molecules containing genetic information could indeed be synthesized in the laboratory. His studies on molecular hybridization demonstrated that this technique could be utilized to detect the presence and operation of specific genes (including viral genes) within cells.
These findings provide a basis for the current intensive search by Dr. Spiegelman and others for the presence and operation of similar viral genes in various human cancers.
For Dr. Spiegelman's new techniques, which may permit a definitive conclusion on the role of viruses in human cancer in the foreseeable future and may provide the basis for new chemotherapeutic and immunological controls of human cancer, this 1974 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award is given.
Howard Temin
For his contributions to the biology of RNA-containing cancer viruses and elucidation of the mode of action of viral genes.
Dr. Temin's research from 1961 to the present has illuminated the mechanism by which a cell acquires new and permanent genetic traits following infection with these viruses.
His ingenious experiments have analyzed the contributions of cellular and viral functions during infection, and in particular have demonstrated the existence and operation of a novel viral enzyme—RNA-dependent DNA polymerase (reverse transcriptase)—which is contained within the virus particle and which can mediate the synthesis of a DNA copy of the viral RNA genetic molecules.
For Dr. Temin's work, which has profoundly influenced RNA-DNA research since the time of his discovery, this 1974 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award is given.