After the Nobel Prize, the Lasker Award is considered the most prestigious distinction in medical research. The prize is awarded in three categories and is often said to hint at who may be well positioned for a future Nobel Prize.
This year’s award in the category of basic research is shared by Emmanuel Mignot, at Stanford University School of Medicine, and Masashi Yanagisawa, University of Tsukuba. They receive the distinction for their contributions to the discovery of orexin, a brain peptide that keeps us awake, and for the insight that orexin deficiency causes uncontrolled sleep attacks in narcolepsy.
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