Keck School of Medicine of USC To Host Lectures By Winners Of The 2013 Lasker Awards

NEW YORK, Jan. 7, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation today announced that the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles will host the 2014 Lasker Lectures featuring recipients of the 2013 Lasker Awards.

The annual Lasker Lectures feature presentations by laureates who explore pressing scientific questions related to biomedical research. This is the first time in the 68-year history of the Foundation that a major academic medical center has hosted lectures delivered by all of the year's winners of both the basic and clinical medical research awards.

"We're thrilled the Keck School of Medicine of USC has agreed to host the 2014 Lasker Lectures," said Claire Pomeroy, President of the Lasker Foundation. "The Keck School is a leader among academic medical centers, and we could not have asked for a better partner to showcase our laureates."

"The Lasker Awards celebrate the world's finest scientists and clinicians whose work has led to the understanding, diagnosis, prevention, treatment, and cure of many diseases," said Carmen A. Puliafito, M.D., M.B.A., dean of the Keck School of Medicine of USC. "We are deeply honored to host the Lasker Lectures, and we extend a warm welcome to this remarkable and distinguished group of individuals and laud them for their contributions to biomedical research."

The Lasker Awards -- among the most respected and coveted science prizes in the world -- are given for outstanding basic and clinical medical research discoveries and for lifetime contributions to medical science and for outstanding public service. The awards, which carry an honorarium of $250,000 in each category, were presented on September 20, 2013, in New York City.

The first lectures at USC will be given by Richard Scheller, Ph.D., executive vice president, research administration of Genentech, and Thomas Sudhof, M.D., professor of molecular and cellular physiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, and winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, who shared the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award for discoveries concerning rapid neurotransmitter release. Their work provides insights into how communication occurs in the brain.  They will speak at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, March 4, 2014, in Mayer Auditorium on the USC Health Sciences Campus.

Graeme M. Clark, M.D., Professor Emeritus at the University of Melbourne, Australia, Ingeborg Hochmair, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of the cochlear implant company MED-EL, and Blake S. Wilson, D.Sc., co-director of the Duke Hearing Center at Duke University, shared the Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award for developing the modern cochlear implant, a device that allows the profoundly deaf to hear. They will deliver their lectures at 4 p.m. on Thursday, April 10, 2014, also in Mayer Auditorium on the USC Health Sciences Campus.

Additional information:

About the Foundation: The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation fosters the prevention and treatment of disease and disabilities by honoring excellence in basic and clinical science, by educating the public, and by advocating for support of medical research. Founded in 1942, the Lasker Foundation presents the prestigious Lasker Awards, which recognize the world's leaders in basic and clinical medical research and individuals with outstanding public service. For much of the 20th Century, the Foundation was led by Mary Lasker, who was America's most prominent citizen-activist for public investment in medical research. She is widely credited with motivating the White House and Congress to greatly expand federal funding for medical research, particularly through the National Institutes of Health.

About the Keck School of Medicine of USC: Founded in 1885, the Keck School of Medicine of USC is among the nation's leaders in innovative patient care, scientific discovery, education, and community service. It is part of Keck Medicine of USC, the University of Southern California's medical enterprise, one of only two university-owned academic medical centers in the Los Angeles area. This includes the Keck Medical Center of USC, composed of the Keck Hospital of USC and the USC Norris Cancer Hospital. The two world-class, USC-owned hospitals are staffed by more than 500 physicians who are faculty at the Keck School. The school today has more than 1,500 full-time faculty members and voluntary faculty of more than 2,400 physicians. These faculty direct the education of approximately 700 medical students and 1,000 students pursuing graduate and post-graduate degrees. The school trains more than 900 resident physicians in more than 50 specialty or subspecialty programs and is the largest educator of physicians practicing in Southern California. Together, the school's faculty and residents serve more than 1.5 million patients each year at Keck Hospital of USC and USC Norris Cancer Hospital, as well as USC-affiliated hospitals Children's Hospital Los Angeles and Los Angeles County + USC Medical Center. Keck School faculty also conduct research and teach at several research centers and institutes, including the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute, the Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Stem Cell Research and Regenerative Medicine at USC, the USC Cardiovascular Thoracic Institute, the USC Eye Institute and the USC Institute of Urology.

For more information on the Keck School of Medicine of USC, visit keck.usc.edu.

About the Awards: The Lasker Awards are among the most respected science prizes in the world. Recipients of the Lasker Medical Research Awards are selected by a distinguished international jury chaired by Joseph L. Goldstein, recipient of the 1985 Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research and the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Lasker Laureates receive a citation highlighting their achievements and an inscribed statuette of the Winged Victory of Samothrace, the Lasker Foundation's traditional symbol representing humanity's victory over disease, disability, and death. Eighty-three Lasker laureates have received the Nobel Prize, including 31 in the past two decades. More details on the Lasker Award recipients, the full citations for each award category, video interviews and photos of the awardees, and additional information on the foundation are available at www.laskerfoundation.org.

SOURCE The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation