Lasker~DeBakey
Clinical Medical Research Award

Acceptance remarks by Nicholas Lydon

It is an enormous honor and pleasure to be here with my co-recipients to receive the Lasker~DeBakey Award.

Like many pharmaceutical discoveries, imatinib was a team effort that was built on a foundation of basic science discoveries, some of which have previously been recognized by the Lasker foundation. I am honored to accept this award on behalf of myself and my collaborators at Ciba Geigy, who contributed to the development of imatinib.

My interest in kinases started during my postgraduate days at the University of Dundee, where I was profoundly influenced by the work of Philip Cohen's lab on the regulation of glycogen metabolism by reversible protein phosphorylation. Armed with a growing interest in protein kinases, I was fortunate to move into applied research at a time when pioneering studies in the oncogene field had come together to clearly implicate the Bcr-Abl kinases in the pathogenesis of CML. In retrospect, being new to the pharmaceutical industry was a big advantage, as I was naive to the complex path a drug discovery idea must take from its inception in the lab through to the clinic. Luckily, I was not alone in this journey and had the fortune of working with outstanding colleagues and mentors at Ciba-Geigy and collaborating with Brian Druker in the translation of imatinib into the clinic.

I consider myself extremely blessed in having been able to contribute to a project that has made a difference to cancer patients. I thank you for this great honor and hope that it will motivate young scientists to work on translating advances that have been made in basic research into treatments that make an impact on patients lives.