THE 2006 LASKER AWARDS WILL BE presented this week to a group of cell biologists who discovered telomerase, another cell biologist who developed in situ hybridization, and the psychiatrist who created cognitive therapy. These awards recognize scientists for outstanding contributions to basic and clinical research and are considered the most distinguished such honor in the United States. “Scientists make great discoveries by pursuing curious observations, devising bold experiments, rigorously testing ideas, throwing aside conventional thought, and working with great persistence,” said Joseph L. Goldstein, MD, Lasker Awardee, Nobel laureate, and chair of the international jury of researchers that selects Lasker recipients. “This year’s Lasker Awards honor investigators who have demonstrated these ingredients of success.” Elizabeth H. Blackburn, PhD, of the University of California, San Francisco; CarolW.Greider,PhD,ofJohnsHopkins University School of Medicine, in Baltimore; and JackW.Szostak,PhD,ofHarvardMedicalSchool, inBoston,willshare the 2006 Albert Lasker Award for Basic MedicalResearch fordiscovering telomerase. Telomerase is a RNA-containing enzymethatsynthesizestheendsofchromosomes, or telomeres, which serve to protect the chromosome from damage. Studiesby these investigatorsexplaining how telomerase works laid the foundation for subsequent research linking telomeresand telomerasewithcancer and certain age-related conditions. The Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research will be awarded to Aaron T. Beck, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, in Philadelphia, for developing cognitive therapy, an approach that has proved to be a valuable treatment for a host of mental illnesses, including depression, suicidal behavior, generalized anxiety, and eating disorders. Beyond challenging the conventional approach to psychiatry, Beck brought a new rigor to clinical studies of so-called talk therapies and set a new standard for assessing the effectiveness of any psychotherapy. Joseph Gall, PhD, of the Carnegie Institution’s department of embryology in Baltimore, will be honored with the Albert Lasker Award for Special Achievement in Medical Science, in recognition of his distinguished 57-year career as a pioneer in the study of chromosome structure and function and as an early champion of women in science. Gall invented in situ hybridization, a technique that enables researchers to locate a single DNA or RNA sequence in the nucleus of cells. He also mentored Blackburn and many other women who have risen to prominence in science. The awards will be presented at a luncheon ceremony on September 29 in New York City. ENDS OF THE CHROMOSOME The discovery of telomerase solved a decades-old mystery. Scientists had observed that telomeres have special characteristics and that cells must have some mechanism for protecting the ends of chromosomes from becoming shorter after DNA replication. In the 1960s and 1970s, work by Blackburn, Greider, and Szostak began to reveal structure of telomeres and how they are constructed. Blackburn demonstrated that telomeres are composed of simple repeated DNA sequences; she and Szostak showed that these repeats stabilize chromosomes in cells. Szostak and Blackburn predicted that an enzyme added these sequences to the end of chromosomes, and Greider and Blackburn found the enzyme, telomerase. Szostak and Victoria Lundblad, PhD, then a postdoctoral fellow, subsequently demonstrated that cells unable to perform the telomerase reaction lost their telomeres and over time stop dividing. “The discovery of telomerase by the Lasker Basic Awardees is an example of pure curiosity-driven research that emerged from work on two organisms—a pond dwelling ciliate and bak-