Shinya Yamanaka, CiRA Director, Wins Lasker Award

September 14, 2009

Shinya Yamanaka, Director of the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application, of the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (Professor of the regeneration control field at the Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences, Kyoto University), has won the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award.

Often referred to as “America’s Nobel,” the Lasker Award is one of the world’s most prestigious scientific awards. Director Yamanaka is the sixth Japanese Lasker laureate, following Susumu Tonegawa, Akira Endo and others. Dr. Tonegawa also won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and Dr. Endo received last year’s Lasker-Debakey Clinical Medical Research Award.

The award ceremony was held in New York on October 2.

In regard to Director Yamanaka’s winning the award, a press conference was held with the attendance of Director Yamanaka, President Hiroshi Matsumoto, Executive Director / Executive Vice-President Nobutaka Fujii, and Executive Director / Executive Vice-President Tamae Ohnishi.

At the conference Director Yamanaka said that, when he heard the news, he had been surprised at receiving the award at a very early stage, and been very pleased to share the honor of winning with Sir John Gurdon, the father of nuclear reprogramming.

Also, President Matsumoto said that the award was a great honor to Kyoto University, and that the University was fully ready to continue with its support.

From left: Tamae Ohnishi (Executive Director / Executive Vice-President), Hiroshi Matsumoto (President), Shinya Yamanaka (CiRA Director) and Nobutaka Fujii (Executive Director / Executive Vice-President)