SLIDE #1:

MEDICAL RESEARCH

MARY WOODARD LASKER: FIRST LADY OF

Thank you and good afternoon. It is a great pleasure to be here among

friends of the Lasker Foundation, key supporters of medical research,

medical practice and the health sciences, and citizens with a deep interest

in health progress. Thank you for the opportunity to talk about the life of

Mary Woodard Lasker. It was a life so well lived, and as once said, as

important to human health as Harvard is to American education.

Therefore, it is curious to find little mention of Mary Lasker in my review

of scholarly works about great women of the 20th century. Of course,

justifiably so, there is much devoted to the lives of Eleanor Roosevelt,

Marie Curie, Mother Teresa, Golda Meier and even Oprah Winfrey. But

Mary Lasker is arguably the one American citizen who has had made the

greatest contribution to the progress of human health since the dawn of

modem medicine. In fact if it weren't for Mary Lasker, we might all be

finding ourselves in a situation like this one.

Slides # 2-3: CARTOONS

Therefore the Foundation is grateful to the National Library of Medicine

for featuring Mary Lasker on profiles of science, assured that this will

increase recognition for this extraordinary lady.

Slide # 4: MARY IN LIVING ROOM

Seriously now, Mary was part Joan of Arc, part Madison Avenue socialite,

and part Hillary Clinton. Robert Moses, the great city planner, once said

about Mary that she had it all-intelligence, vision, generosity, charm,

kindness. I might add that she also had courage, passion, and indefatigable

energy, and the heart and will to apply her gifts and talents to reduce

suffering from disease for people all over the world.

Most of us live our lives by experiencing and sometimes promoting

incremental change. However, there are people who are the Copemicus of

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their day-who place their hands on a key lever that results in

transforming the world. Mary Lasker was one of these people.

Her personal war against disease created a "Kuhnian" paradigm shift in

expectations for the role of the federal government in providing support for

medical science. Through generous philanthropy, aggressive advocacy,

unparallel leadership and strategic lobbying she led a revolution in the

medical research enterprise. Utilizing her wealth, charm, beauty, grace and

intelligence, Mary focused the attention of the nation's most powerful

leaders on medical research and its promise for improved human health.

The list of Mrs. Lasker's honors, national and international, in grateful

appreciation for her efforts, fills pages. They include the Presidential

Medal of Freedom and the French Legion of Honor. In 1984 Congress

honored Mrs. Lasker by naming a center for her here at the NIH: the Mary

Woodard Lasker Center for Health Research.

Slide # 5: GOLD MEDAL

Slide # 6: PRESENTATION OF MEDAL

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When she received the Congressional Gold Medal in 1989 from President

Bush, she accepted with these words: "The strength of our nation

depends on the health of our people. We must once again place the

priority on research. It's good for trade, good for jobs, and vital for all

Americans. Medical research is our hope for our children and for the

building of a healthy America." Is it any wonder that she is

immortalized as the First Lady of Medical Research?

Mary came east as a well-educated young woman from a small town in

Wisconsin. She inherited her life long interests in art, natural beauty and

health from her Irish mother. We learn that "the apple doesn't fall far from

the tree" when we hear the story about her mother, in the early 1900's,

persuading Consolidated Edison to put smoke consumers on their

smokestacks to reduce the smoke and dirt in New York, an innovation at

the time. Con Ed considered her mother to be a terrible menace, setting

the standard for Mary when she pursued her own advocacy campaign.

Mary's mother, ever the citizen activist, also developed two parks in her

hometown in Wisconsin. Mary, like her mother, remained deeply

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interested in urban beautification projects throughout her life, perhaps

believing that nature's splendor has healing powers: the delicate beauty of

a rare tulip could help the wounded mind. Like her passion for medical

research, Mary's commitment to and patronage of urban beautification

represented an extraordinary dedication. She persuaded Mrs. Lyndon

Johnson, as First Lady, to sponsor a national program to beautify America,

which remained a priority for Lady Bird throughout her life.

SLIDE # 7: LADY BIRD

Mrs. Johnson refers in her book, "A White House Diary", to "Mary

Lasker's gift of 9,300 azalea bushes, flowering dogwoods and other plants

along Pennsylvania Avenue, and 800,000 daffodil bulbs planted in natural

drifts along the banks of the Potomac."

Thanks to Mrs. Lasker, through the Foundation's Salute to the Seasons

program, 300 donated cherry trees blossom every spring at the United

Nations and lighted Christmas trees decorate Park Avenue every winter,

while each spring the Park Avenue malls in New York City continue to be

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flowered by the most exquisite and rare tulips, some imported from

Holland.

Slide # 8: TULIPS

People who knew Mary say that she was even a more beautiful woman

than how she appears in hundreds of photos and portraits, many done by

famous artists, like Salvador Dah; and that when she came into a room, her

Slide # 9: ALBERT HEADSHOT

With her first marriage ending in divorce, however, Mary landed the

handsome and brilliant Albert Davis Lasker, an advertising pioneer and

tycoon, president of the reputable firm of Lord & Thomas in Chicago.

Believing that advertising was "salesmanship in print", Mr. Lasker

succeeded at making Wrigley 's chewing gum, Pepsodent toothpaste and

Sunkist oranges household names. He made a considerable fortune, some

of which was used to build a fantastic collection of mostly modern art.

Mary made many trips to Europe to identify promising artists and to

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support their work; she was a lover of the impressionists and abstract art,

in particular.

I remember being in Mrs. Lasker's home in Connecticut, after she had

passed away, and strolling though rooms decorated almost entirely in

white -furniture, walls, rugs, and her signature vase of white flowers-

and viewing photo albums of the Lasker's art collection of paintings by

Renoir, Matisse, Miro, Rodin, Chagall and other now legendary artists. It

is hard to believe that Mary purchased a blue Picasso in the 1950's for

about $900. Before she died, she sold or auctioned off almost her entire

collection of paintings and sculptures so that she could give away the

money for worthy cause. This is one of the reasons that the Lasker

Charitable Trust, which was formed from Mary's estate, has only modest

resources. In this respect she was - not prescient. If only we had just - one

Picasso !

Slide # 10: ALBERT AND MARY

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Albert and Mary were a formidable couple who enjoyed friendships with

the most powerful people in this country. Albert was appointed to head

President's Harding's Shipping Board in the early 1920's, and the Laskers

became friends with many politicians. Their social circle gave Mary access

to the Roosevelts, then the Kennedys and the Johnsons, as well as the

Clintons. The Laskers also socialized with captains of industry and

entertainment celebrities, like Elizabeth Taylor and Jennifer Jones, who

lent their influence and resources to support her campaign for medical

research.

When Albert died in the early 1950's of cancer, Mary leveraged these

personal connections, built on her husband's legacy as salesman

extraordinaire, and with a vengeance pursued her mission, over the last

forty years of her life, to conquer human disease. People who knew her in

those days describe a charismatic leader who sought to fulfill her vision for

research and human health with missionary zeal, unrelenting persistence,

laser focus, and a commitment to the long haul.

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People often ask about the source of Mrs. Lasker's deep interest in medical

research. We don't know for sure. She readily admitted that she did not

understand science, confessing that no one would have her in his

laboratory for five minutes. We do know that Mary suffered as a child

from several painful maladies: mastoids and other ear infections, the flu

and pneumonia. We also know that she was deeply affected by the loss

from disease of several dear friends and resented terribly that their

afflictions and premature deaths were explained as the "will of God".

Mary used to say that she was opposed to cancer, stroke and heart disease

the way that she was opposed to sin. This was her axis of evil and she

began her front in the battle against disease by attacking cancer, the most

feared killer in the 1950's. At that time, if someone was diagnosed with

cancer, it was referred to as a "death sentence". Cancer victims often were

not told that they had the fatal disease, and families did not dare to utter

the dreaded "C" word to even themselves.

SLIDE 1 1: NEWSPAPER - NATIONAL CANCER ACT

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Mary, with Albert's support, helped to change attitudes toward cancer

from a killer that was too horrible to imagine to a threat that could be

thwarted if not conquered. She helped to organize the American Cancer

Society, convinced RCA president David Sarnoff that "cancer" could be

said over the radio, and pressured Reader's Digest to publish a series of

cancer-related articles, and lobbied Congress and several presidents to

create the National Cancer Institute. In 197 1, after what some describe as

Mary's "furious lobbying," Congress passed and Richard Nixon signed

the National Cancer Act.

Slide 12: NIXON LETTER

Here are the President's words as written in this personal letter to Mary: "I

feel that with the procedures set up under this bill, we are now in a position

to make a total commitment to the conquest of cancer."

Mary's impatience, optimism, and perhaps naivete about the virulence of

disease fueled the march to war. Obviously, Mary died without having the

satisfaction of seeing cancer eradicated from the Earth and this may never

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be possible. However her efforts helped to lay the foundation for the

unprecedented progress in biomedical science that has characterized the

last 30 years- some say more progress than there has been in the entire

history of medical research. Even with her great wealth and her sincere

desire to make a difference, how did she do it?

Well, she learned from her rich husband that nothing gets done without

money. She used to say that money "buys ideas". She called money

"frozen ideas" and believed that brilliant men and women of science could

vanquish cancer in ten years if they had enough money to pursue their

research.

After donating a great deal of his own money to his wife's cause, Albert

said that he could never provide enough resources to win the battle that she

was waging. Therefore, with his guidance, Mary turned to the federal

government to shame elected officials into accepting responsibility for

advancing human health. Fortuitously her interests emerged at a

prosperous time in United States history. It was the 1950's and the

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country's victory in World War I1 helped it to become a global power. The

economy grew and so did the Federal revenues.

Mary began her march on Washington guided by the sophisticated and

brilliant lobbyist Mike Gorman and then later by Terry Lierman, and

accompanied by prestigious scientists -Dr. Sidney Farber of Harvard and

Dr. Michael DeBakey, the famous heart surgeon of Baylor Medical

School, and her long time friend Florence Mahoney, who is a legend in her

right. Sharing Mary's interest in mental health and birth control, Florence

became the unofficial hostess to the health lobby and brought together

legislators, policymakers, philanthropists, scientists and advocates.

Mary's goal in Washington was to fundraise for research, but she would

say that she was there "to friend raise"-friends that included:

SLIDE # 13: ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

SLIDE # 14: HARRY TRUMAN

John Fogarty, Lister Hill, Warren Magnuson

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SLIDE # 15: LYNDON JOHNSON

SLIDE # 16: HUBERT HUMPHREY

SLIDE # 17: JACK AND BOBBY KENNEDY

Mark Hatfield, Claude Pepper, Tom Harkin, Lowell Weicker

SLIDE # 18: GERALD FORD

SLIDE # 19: TIP O'NEILL

Hilary Clinton, among others.. .

In those days, if you wanted to testify at a Congressional hearing in

Washington, you called Mary Lasker in New York.

Furthermore, she was magnificent in the Halls of Congress, able to

persuade powerful politicians that the US. Government had a moral

obligation to reduce human suffering from devastating diseases and painful

disabilities. She put in long hours, meeting with legislators and producing

from her handbag a folded onionskin chart tracing the rise of the NIH

appropriations over the years, and notebooks filled with statistics that

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revealed that paltry sums were being spent on medical research, in contrast

to, for example, what the country was spending on producing chewing

gum. One year, the key appropriations vote was held by the late Senator

Styles Bridges of New Hampshire. Mrs. Lasker had been cultivating his

friendship and after three hours waiting to meet with him, she convinced

him to increase that year's research funding.

Mary's family members, with whom I have spoken-her nephew, step

grandson and step daughter in law, say that she had a shy streak and surely

would not have described herself as a brilliant public speaker. However,

everyone would agree that she had a genius for conveying complicated

messages in plain and memorable language to the public and most

importantly to members of Congress who controlled the appropriation

bills. She is famously known for her retort, for example, in response to

questions from Senators about why the NIH needs more money: "If you

think research is expensive, try disease!"

Likewise, she demanded of the scientists with whom she worked, to find

ways to talk to legislators about science in words that a layperson can

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understand. The story goes that in the days when one of the NIH branches

was called the Institute of Microbiology, one congressman asked,

"Whoever died of microbiology?" The name was changed to the Institute

of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Mary concluded, and rightly so,

that non-scientists resonate with vocabulary that "tugs at the heart strings",

and not with technical language. She also was smart to argue that the

national investment in medical research was as much about national

security as human life, an argument that today's health advocates continue

to enhance. Testifying before Congress for more money, Mary

commented on the recent death of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles

and then added that for 6 years the Communists tried every trick in the

book to get Dulles out of their hair, and what the enemies couldn't do to

him, cancer did. Today the Lasker Foundation continues to employ Mary's

strategy to link arguments about the benefits of research to health with

evidence of other huge payoffs, for example, the economic consequences

for the nation in respect to jobs, tax revenues as the healthy return to work,

and reduced costs of home care as disability rates decline.

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With her charisma and ample resources, Mary was able to amass an army

of health advocates, a new phenomenon in the 1950's. Grouch0 Marx could

have been talking about Mary when he said, "only one man in a thousand

is a leader, and the other 999 follow a woman." Philanthropists, kings,

presidents, celebrities, Nobel Prize winners, powerful business men, savvy

lobbyists, motivated citizens and the most respected professional scientists

of her day joined the legions of "Mary's little lambs" and they, in turn,

began to lead their own crusades to conquer disease. Today America is

thriving with hundreds of influential groups, a cottage industry of

spokespersons for millions of patients and their families who are looking

to medical research to offer preventions, treatments and cures for autism,

Alzheimer's, ALS, spinal cord injury, blindness, and diabetes among the

other cripplers and killers that spread human suffering and premature

death. Mary Lasker led the way to these successes.

Most importantly, Mary Lasker helped to created this national treasure-

the NIH-- a billion dollar success story. Her lobbying efforts helped to

increase the NIH budget 150 fold from $460 million between 1945 and

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196 1, reaching $1 billion by the late 60's and then $1 1 billion by 1994; and

Mary's advocate descendants took it from there to boost the budget to its

current level at almost $29 billion. The NIH has funded a revolution in

biology and medical care that accounts for the global leadership in medical

science that the United States enjoys today, and the NIH remains the envy

of the world. There is nothing like it on the planet in terms of magnitude

and reach, with the power to affect health and well being for people

everywhere. Mary Lasker never had children of her own, but she "gave

birth" to the NIH and nursed it to maturity.

It is fair to say, though, that Mary and her "noble conspirators" as they

were referred to in a cover article of the June, 1967 Atlantic Monthly, had

critics and skeptics among smart and powerful people who disagreed with

her research priorities, blamed her for taking science in the wrong

direction, resented that a lay person could influence science policy, and

argued with her about her supposed wisdom that money buys ideas. She

often sparred with the highly respected James Shannon, the Director of the

NIH from 1955 to 1968. The debate about investing NIH resources to

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prevent cancer by developing vaccines, or to treat cancer by perfecting

chemotherapies, is one area that came under acute criticism. In 1955

influenced by Lasker advocates, Senator Hill, over the objections of many

scientists, pushed the NIH into a massive program of cancer

chemotherapy. A special committee, which studied the NIH in 1965,

reported that the program had begun on too large a scale, based on too

little scientific data. `The availability of money" it said, "exceeded the

availability of sound ideas."

Despite the critics, Mrs. Lasker never lost her focus and never tired; and

loyal and powerful friends, and citizen believers in the promise of science,

often blunted the criticism with praise for her efforts.

SLIDE # 20: LYNDON JOHNSON

Here is Lyndon Johnson: "There are a number of thoughtful people with a

role in health policy who are apt to become highly exasperated with Mrs.

Lasker. But then they remind themselves of the contribution that she and

her group have made." One government official deflected criticism of

Mary by saying, "People get so mad at her and they say that Mary Lasker

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is almost always wrong. In fact, she has been almost always right. Her

instincts are very correct." And even the critics had to recognize that

innovative progress had occurred because of the prodding by Lasker

advocates to try novel treatment courses, to open new fields of research

around aging and mental illness, and to forge collaborations within the

pharmaceutical industry to speed drug development and delivery.

Mary understood, I believe, that there is no gain without risk and so she

was willing to "push the envelope" of ideas about new preventions and

treatments, and to personally finance promising research directions, for

example, on interferon-a natural protein- which led to an antiviral drug

to combat some types of cancers. She admired and allied with scientists

who were daring, and in her words, "had the guts" to innovate. Perhaps it

is this spirit of reasonable but bold and creative risk taking which is her

greatest legacy.

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Mary's beauty, wealth, and social and political connections made her a

force to contend with; and she was not content to aim these "weapons" in

the battle against disease on the rich and powerful. She recruited

professional scientists as soldiers. Mary not only understood that Albert's

money would amount to seed funding for the research enterprise and

therefore that it could only be sustained by steady government funds; but

she also realized that in order to develop public support for research that

spokespeople for health had to include men and women of science who

were willing and able to speak to the public and to lawmakers about

research progress, and the promises and opportunities for better health,

longer life and the eradication of disease.

SLIDE # 2 1-22: DEBAKEY AND MARY

One of Mrs. Lasker's proteges was the then young heart surgeon, Michael

Ellis DeBakey. His singular achievements as an ambassador for research

and medicine are a testament to Mary's talent as a tutor in the craft of

public advocacy. Dr. DeBakey, now 99 years old and still active, is the

best known representative of medical science around the world. His face

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has graced publications as popular as Time magazine and as specialized as

the Journal of Cardiology. In so many of my conversations with Dr.

DeBakey, he has made a point of crediting Mary with the multi

dimensional trajectory of his career- a career characterized by brilliant

science but also by statesmanlike advocacy at every level of government,

by successful mentoring of promising students to pursue his noble

profession, and by effectively educating the public about medical research

progress and its health benefits. Dr. DeBakey won the Lasker Clinical

Medical Research Award in 1963, and later chaired the Lasker Awards

Jury for thirty years.

In spite of her shyness and despite her elite circumstances, Mary made a

virtue of getting beyond the cage of privacy, making civic connections.

She understood so profoundly that we are social creatures and that we can

have an extraordinary impact on large problems by marshalling public

support for our ideas. To increase public understanding that funding for

cancer research could lead to amazing discoveries, Mary enlisted the help

of a close friend, Eppie Lederer.

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SLIDES # 23-24: EPPIE LEDERER AND MARY

Eppie authored the popular syndicated newspaper advice column "Ann

Landers". She reached out to her faithful readership by calling for citizens

across the nation to flood members of Congress with letters of support for

the war against cancer. And one of Mary's great lobbying achievements

was to persuade the NIH to establish advisory councils comprised of

laypeople as well as physicians and scientists to oversee the overall

direction of research. She created a culture of participation in the

specialized world of science and helped ordinary citizens to conclude that

they too could have some influence over the future of their own health-a

trend line that has accelerated since the arrival of the internet and other

communication technologies. In this respect Mary was prescient!

Mary also learned how to raise awareness on a national scale from Albert,

whose fortune was made, in part, by promoting the s1ogan-L.S.M.F.T.-

Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco.

SLIDE # 25: LUCKY STRIKE AD

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His success as a businessman increased the number of smokers on this

planet, but the story has an ironic twist. Mary funneled his millions into

cancer research, and then mental health research, and heart disease, and

then stroke and the list goes on. As importantly, she learned from Albert

how to "advertise" the opportunities and successes of medical science to

the American people, and how to leverage her personal influence with the

"movers and shakers" for public gain. Albert taught Mary the importance

of public communication and she learned well. On his 50th birthday, in

1945, she honored her husband with a gift that has become one of the most

credible and respected expressions of the value of medical research to

human life---the Albert Lasker Medical Research Awards Program,

managed adroitly by Mary's only sister, Alice Fordyce, for more than 20

years.

SLIDE # 26: STATUETTE

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The Lasker Awards are presented annually in basic and clinical research,

and every other year in special achievement and public service. Award

winners receive a statuette modeled after the Winged Victory of

Samothrace, symbolizing victory over death and disease, as well as an

honorarium. The Lasker, it is fair to say, is the most respected and coveted

medical science prize in the world. Since 1946, 136 individuals have

received Lasker Basic Awards and 128 have received Clinical Awards.

Most of these discoveries have stood the test of time for over 60 years, and

have chronicled the most revolutionary advances in medical research and

practice, setting the highest bar for creativity. The winners' achievements

have extended life and reduced suffering from so many health problems

and serious afflictions including hypertension, cystic fibrosis, cancer,

diabetes, meningitis, heart disease, arthritis, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's,

depression, paralysis, memory loss, blindness, infertility, hemophilia, and

kidney disease, among others. DNA finger printing, CAT scans, MRI

technology, cataract surgery, heart valve replacement-each of these

discoveries has revolutionized medical practice. To date, 75 Lasker

winners have gone on to win the Nobel Prize.

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Mary's genius was to establish a world class jury of scientists to decide the

recipients of the Lasker prize, which in turn is seen by science

professionals as the ultimate nod of peer recognition. She set the highest

standard for the Award and so the prize has evolved as a measure of

research excellence and creativity, motivating the very best men and

women of science to "reach for the brass ring" in their efforts to eliminate

disease. Indeed, every Lasker Award recipient has been engaged in

science that has been described by peers as breathtaking, miraculous,

exquisite, and beautiful. Each has elevated science to an art-a finely

tuned achievement of the seemingly impossible which like art, offers a

whole new way of interpreting reality: Avery, Sabin, Pmisner, Brenner,

Benzer, Rusk, Farber, Yalow, McClintock, Varmus, Menninger, Watson

and Crick are among the 300 who have won a Lasker Award.

Just as Mary Lasker's journey to further the goals of medical research was

characterized by hair pulling fmstrations as well as exhilarating successes,

each of the Award winners has an exciting and sometimes tortuous story to

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tell. Like the intrepid early explorers of the world who risked everything

to reach uncharted destinations, great scientists are people of uncommon

courage -and not only because they carry out bold and risky experiments

that have a high probability for failure, or as Dr. Joseph Goldstein,

Chairman of the Lasker Awards Jury, says, "whose works have as much a

chance for success as tossing a dart into a heap of spaghetti and hoping it

hits a particular strand in a certain spot". The sad fact is that many

extraordinary scientists have been vilified by the press, sometimes by their

own peers, or often by established institutions for breaking norms and

turning convention on its head, for seeing the flaws in accepted ideas.

Slide # 27: ROBERT EDWARDS

Robert Edwards, the father of in vitro fertilization, which has helped more

than one million infertile couples to have children, had his life threatened

out of fear that his science would produce two headed monsters, and anger

that he was fooling with Mother Nature.

SLIDE #26: BARRY MARSHALL

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Barry Marshall, convinced that bacteria and not stress is the cause of

ulcers, took a leap to prove his theory that would define his very fate.

Defying the medical explanation for the cause of ulcers, Marshall

swallowed the H. pylori bacteria to prove to the scoffers and the naysayers

that ulcers are not caused by stress, spices or excessive stomach acid.

The Award winners are individuals with profound insight who look where

others cannot see-who have a rage to know and a unique idea that defies

the wildest imagination.

SLIDE # 28: WILLHELM KOLFF

People like Wilhelm Kolff - shown here demonstrating a heart lung

machine that he was developing in his 90s and which he wore to the

Lasker Awards presentation - Kolff studied the engineering of a washing

machine in his search for kidney dialysis. In the 1940s he constructed the

first artificial kidney to remove the body of toxic wastes - this first dialysis

machine consisted of 1130 feet of cellophane tubing made from sausage

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casing, wrapped 30 times around a horizontal drum made out of aluminum

strips.

The Awards which Mary established 62 years ago continue to serve her

twofold purpose to educate and to engage the general public about

advances in medical science, as well as to provide a benchmark of superior

achievement for research practitioners. The Lasker Foundation enhances

the legacy of Lasker as advocate, activist, and educator by honoring not

only extraordinary science, but by recognizing individuals for outstanding

public service and special achievements that have advanced the health

sciences and public health.

SLIDE # 30: NANCY BRINKER

The winners of the Mary Woodard Lasker Public Service Awards mostly

have been ordinary citizens like Nancy Brinker who began with $200

working out of her garage to build the Komen Breast Cancer Foundation

into a multi-million dollar philanthropy;

SLIDE # 3 1 : PAUL ROGERS

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And elected officials like Paul Rogers whose relentless advocacy has

earned him the title of "Mr. Health" and the devotion of health advocates

throughout the country;

SLIDE # 32: CHRISTOPHER REEVE

and celebrities like Christopher Reeve who worked tirelessly over a decade

of paralysis to advocate for stem cell research.

SLIDE #3 3 : ANTHONY FAUCI

The Foundation was delighted to bestow this year's Public Service Award

on one of NIH's own, Dr.Anthony Fauci, for his role as the principal

architect of two major U.S. governmental programs, one aimed at AIDS

and the other at biodefense.

The winners of the Albert Lasker Special Achievement Award have been

successful professional scientists who have gained legendary status as

leaders by expanding their interest, reach and influence beyond their

laboratories.

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SLIDE #34: JOSEPH GALL

They are outstanding and beloved mentors, like Dr. Joseph Gall honored

in 2006, who was an early champion of women and whose own students,

like Elizabeth Blackburn, have gone on to make spectacular contributions

as well.

SLIDE # 35: DAN KOSHLAND

They are institution builders, like Dr. Daniel Koshland, honored in 1998,

who some say was overlooked by the Nobel committee for his work on

how enzymes and proteins function, resulting in key conceptual advances

in biochemistry. He was recognized by Lasker because he took it upon

himself to remake the entire biology program at the University of

California at Berkeley when he spearheaded its reorganization, combining

12 small departments into 3 larger ones. Koshland worked for ten years,

slogging through hundreds of committee meetings, to break down the

disciplinary walls in biology at this behemoth of an institution.

SLIDE # 36: MATT MESELSON

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The scientists who have won the Special Achievement Award also have

had an impact on public policy like Dr. Matthew Messelson, honored in

2004, for working to prevent the manufacture and spread of biological and

chemical weapons during the years of Richard Nixon's Presidency, and to

resolve issues of military and strategic importance in the Vietnam War,

convincing the powers-to-be to end U. S. herbicide operations.

Like Mary Lasker, the greatness of Lasker Award winners rests in their

abilities as visionary leaders and bold experimentalists, doing the

unthinkable, turning prevailing assumptions on their heads. Like Mary,

they had the courage to follow through on their own peculiar hunches, or

unconventional theories, or sometimes serendipitous insights in to how to

unravel a mystery of the human body, or to meet a challenge in research,

or in public policy. Like Mary these extraordinary achievers demanded

unflagging devotion to mission, clarity of purpose, a backseat to ego, wild

imagination about the possibilities arising from one's work-and good

luck.

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Blessed with the good fortune to be facing this new and vast horizon

of exploration in medical research, all of us are obliged to find a role for

ourselves that will move us closer to unraveling the mysteries of the

human body and its interactions with diseases--- perhaps through daring

research, or as eloquent public spokespeople, as rational voices in policy

debates, as effective institutional leaders, as devoted and inspiring

teachers, as staunch advocates, as informed voters.

SLIDE # 37: MARY OLD

I never had the honor of meeting Mrs. Lasker. She died in 1993 at the age

of 94 in her home in Greenwich, Ct. But I know that if Mary was standing

here she would exhort you to insure that our local, state and national

leaders embrace the belief that science holds great promise for our lives-

and that medical science is the certain path to improved human health.

She also would assure us that each one of us is capable of making a

difference in the lives of people who are suffering from devastating

diseases and disabling injures. Perhaps it will be the scientists of the next

generation who will fulfill Mrs. Lasker's dream of conquering not only

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cancer but also the other "cripplers and killers" that she devoted her to life

to vanquish. So much work lies ahead to rid the world of these natural

enemies. We at the Lasker Foundation hope that we can count on you to

play a part.

Or else we may find ourselves in a situation like this

SLIDE # 38: CARTOON

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