News Release

Hutchinson Center Director Wins 'America's Nobel'

Grant and Award Announcement

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center

Hartwell Receives Nation's Most Distinguished Honor For Basic Research

Lee Hartwell, Ph.D., president and director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, on today (Sunday, Sept. 20) was named a winner of the 1998 Albert Lasker Medical Research Awards. The nation's most distinguished honor for outstanding contributions to basic and clinical medical research, the Lasker Awards will be presented Friday, Sept. 25 at a luncheon in New York City. Seven researchers will be honored.

Hartwell, also a professor in the Department of Genetics at the University of Washington College of Arts and Sciences, where much of his groundbreaking research was conducted, is one of three scientists to share this year's Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Prize. The researchers are being honored for the discovery of the universal mechanism that controls cell division in all eukaryotic (nucleated) organisms, from yeasts to frogs to humans. The process of cell regulation -- how cells determine when and how to multiply or otherwise develop, and how that process can go awry -- is fundamental to understanding how cancer cells mutate and to developing approaches that predict, prevent or reverse that mutation.

The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation since 1946 has distributed more than 300 awards, often called "America's Nobels," as 59 Lasker recipients have received the Nobel Prize.

For more information : Detailed information about the awards and recipients will be available Sept. 19 on the Lasker Foundation web site, www.laskerfoundation.org.

TV stations please note : To support weekend TV news coverage of the Lasker Awards, b-roll of the event will be fed via satellite on Friday, Sept. 25. Transmission time and coordinates will be distributed as soon as they become available.

The Lasker Awards to coincide with local cancer rally/candlelight vigil -- Also on Friday, Sept. 25, the Hutchinson Center will join other local health care organizations in sponsoring a 7:30 p.m. candlelight vigil at the Seattle Center Flag Plaza Stage as part of "The March ... Coming Together to Conquer Cancer," the local counterpart to a national march to be held the next day on the Capitol Mall in Washington, D.C. For more information, please contact Susan Edmonds at (206) 667-2896.

###


Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.