Albert Lasker
Basic Medical Research Award

Welcome Remarks

Welcome Remarks from Lasker Chairman Alfred Sommer
I'm Al Sommer, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation.

I'm delighted that you have joined us for this annual celebration of outstanding contributions to medical science. Today marks the 65th anniversary of these prestigious awards.

Those of you who regularly attend this festive occasion will no doubt note that this is the first year in three that the Mayor has not joined us. Mayor Bloomberg has, on several occasions at Hopkins, pointed out that he and I are exactly the same age. That is not precisely true. He is three months older, which means he is burdened by the knowledge that he does not share his birthday with either me, Ghandi or Groucho Marx. Our birthdays are tomorrow, October 2.

Many of you play an important role in the Foundation's work. I would like my fellow members of the Board of Directors to please stand and be recognized.

Every year, this Awards luncheon is graced by the attendance of a number of previous Lasker Laureates. I'd like to ask my fellow Lasker Laureates to stand and be recognized.

It is no secret that the high regard in which the Lasker Awards are held is due in large measure to the dedicated, insightful work of our illustrious Jury. I'd like to ask those members of the Jury present today, a Jury so ably chaired by Joe Goldstein, to please stand and be recognized.

To set the record straight, I have no substantive involvement in the Jury's proceedings. I thought it important to mention this, because this year's awardees are particularly aligned with my personal interests: Doug Coleman and Jeff Friedman, who discovered leptin, for providing us a potentially powerful insight for tackling the huge public health burden posed by obesity; Napoleone Ferrara, for providing ophthalmologists like me with the first tangible treatment we have for age-related-macular degeneration; and David Weatherall, the eminent British medical scientist who studied with my late, great friend and Lasker Laureate, Victor McKusick. David is on record as reporting upon his arrival in Baltimore (and I quote): "It was awful, actually. They housed us in a place that had miniscule rooms and communal bathing. I won't go into the details, but communal bathing in the United States is not pleasant." Whether or not it was related to the communal bathing, David met his future wife at Hopkins, where she was working in the Dept of Biochemistry at the School of Public Health.

Those of you who have joined us today are all distinguished in your own right, and add luster to this important occasion. I thank you for your participation.

I now turn over these proceedings to the esteemed President of the Lasker Foundation, Dr. Maria Freire.

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Welcome Remarks from Lasker President Maria Freire
I am delighted to join Al in welcoming you to this 65th Anniversary celebration of the Lasker Awards.

We are here today to honor four individuals whose work — to uncover a secret of our metabolism; to develop a therapy that can halt a form of blindness; and to understand the molecular underpinning of inherited blood diseases — affects the lives of people all over the world. But in a more fundamental sense, we are gathered here today because all of us deeply appreciate the enormous potential and the promise of medical research.

Some of us are scientists, working long hours in the laboratory pursuing rigorous experiments, hoping for the reward of discovery. Some of us are journalists, bringing the story and the complexities of research to the public. Some of us are advocates, some philanthropists. Some of us work in business. Some of us are in government. Whatever we do in life, we are here today because we share a bond — a belief — that science at its best, asking basic yet very difficult questions and tenaciously pursuing clues, wherever they might lead, is a noble and worthy vocation.

That is to say, all of us are bonded together by human curiosity. And all of us share the hope that we can harness this curiosity to make our world better, to prevent and alleviate suffering, through medical research.

Today, we celebrate this common bond as we honor these four remarkable individuals, about whom you will learn much more in a moment. And on the occasion of the Lasker Awards' 65th Anniversary, we celebrate the generations of researchers whose work has enriched all of our lives.

Among the materials in front of you, you will find a rich descriptive history of the Lasker Awards.

As you read about the discoveries that in many ways have defined medical science over the past six and a half decades, I invite you to think about the future, for it is really the future that the Lasker Awards represent.

These awards shine a beacon to the students and post-docs of today, and to the interested public of tomorrow: to our children and grandchildren, illuminating the best in science and invoking the need to keep asking questions, and to continue to improve lives.

Now I would like to ask you to join me in welcoming Joe Goldstein to the podium.

Joe, who this year celebrates his 15th anniversary of inspired leadership as chair of the Lasker Medical Research Awards Jury, is both an art lover and a very creative medical researcher. He will help us explore the deep connections between art and science.