BCRF Grantee Mary-Claire King Honored With Prestigious Lasker Award

Longtime grantee recognized for “bold, imaginative and diverse contributions to medical science.”

BCRF congratulates Dr. Mary-Claire King on her Lasker-Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science.  Since 1945, the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation Awards Program has recognized the contributions of scientists, physicians, and public servants who have made major advances in the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, cure and prevention of human disease. The Lasker Awards often presage future recognition by the Nobel committee, so they have become popularly known as "American Nobels."

The 2014 Lasker-Koshland Award honors scientists for their bold, imaginative and diverse scientific and human rights accomplishments. A BCRF grantee since 1997, Dr. King discovered the BRCA1 gene locus that causes hereditary breast cancer and deployed DNA strategies that reunite missing persons with their families. Her work has touched millions of families around the world.

Read more about Dr. King's award-winning research in this September 8, 2014, article from The New York Times.