Albert Lasker Award
for Special Achievement in Medical Science

Award Description

Paul Zamecnik
For brilliant and original science that revolutionized biochemistry and spawned new avenues of scientific inquiry.

Few scientists make a contribution of the monumental importance of Paul Zamecnik. Fewer still make two.

But in a 60-year career characterized by sheer scientific originality and brilliance, this molecular biologist first provided the tools for deciphering the genetic code and then later was the first to conceive of the successful use of antisense DNA for the highly selective inhibition of gene expression.

In the 1950s, the mechanism of protein biosynthesis was a "black box." Prevailing ideas were naïve and without experimental support. Some biochemists had advanced the idea that proteins were assembled by the action of proteolytic enzymes in a reverse reaction.

But it was Paul Zamecnik and his team who unlocked the mystery, defining the biochemistry of amino acid activation and assembling its proteins. This provided the first hard evidence for transfer RNA, the key piece in the puzzle of how genetic information in DNA is translated into the specific sequence of amino acids that gives each protein its distinct molecular identity. His work provided a totally new picture of protein synthesis—one that did not simply overthrow a previous idea, but filled a void.

The key was the development of cell-free systems capable of carrying out net peptide bond formation, using ¹⁴C-amino acids for the first time. His results and discovery of an entirely new chemical mechanism were received throughout the scientific community with enormous enthusiasm.

Dr. Zamecnik's next major discovery was the conceptualization and demonstration that antisense DNA, in which short chains of DNA, chemically synthesized to be complementary to selected RNA targets in the cell, are used to selectively inactivate the expression of specific genes. This groundbreaking work has spawned the development of a new field of research, a novel approach to investigating new drugs using antisense DNA to block or stop the replication of viruses. Clinical trials of antisense DNA drugs for AIDS, cancer and infectious disease are conducted now in laboratories around the world because of Paul Zamecnik's discoveries, some of which are in his own laboratory, where he continues to be a major player.

To Paul C. Zamecnik, for brilliant and original science that revolutionized biochemistry and created an entirely new field of scientific inquiry, this 1996 Albert Lasker Award for Special Achievement in Medical Science is given.