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NCI scientists to receive Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award
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Two scientists from NCI will receive the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award.
John T. Schiller, PhD, deputy chief of the Laboratory of Cellular Oncology in the NCI’s Center for Cancer Research, and Douglas R. Lowy, MD, chief of the Laboratory of Cellular Oncology in the NCI’s Center for Cancer Research and acting director of NCI, are being recognized for research they conducted that improved the understanding of HPV infection.
Their work led to the development of three FDA-approved HPV vaccines.
The Lasker Awards, given since 1945, recognize outstanding contributions to basic and clinical medical research and public service.
“I’m incredibly proud of this much-deserved honor bestowed upon John and Doug for their foundational discoveries that led to the creation of HPV vaccines,” NIH Director Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, said in a press release. “Thanks to their extraordinary efforts, we have the potential to eliminate cervical cancer and greatly reduce other HPV-associated cancers. This award reinforces the critical importance of basic research in the development of medical breakthroughs like the HPV vaccine.”
In the 1990s, a team of researchers led by Schiller and Lowy determined that proteins that form the outer shell of HPV could form virus-like particles that resemble the virus but are not infectious. This discovery laid the groundwork for HPV vaccines.
“This year’s Lasker Medical Research Awards illustrate the power of biomedical investigation to advance human health, whether scientists probe basic questions that reveal unforeseen truths or pursue goal-directed projects,” Joseph L. Goldstein, MD, chairman of the department of molecular genetics at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and chair of the Lasker Medical Research Awards Jury, said in the release. “Douglas Lowy and John Schiller discovered that a single protein from the capsule of papillomaviruses can self-assemble into virus-like particles, paving the way for HPV vaccines that prevent cervical and other cancers.”