Always a privilege to share opening remarks at our #LaskerAward ceremony.
#Lasker2026 🧪

Always a privilege to share opening remarks at our #LaskerAward ceremony.
#Lasker2026 🧪
#LaskerLaureate Takehisa Kitazawa says he has “encountered multiple drug discovery challenges” in his career. But failure, Kitazawa reminds us during his 2026 Clinical Medical Award acceptance speech, is a necessary step toward success. 🧪
From playing with LEGO blocks as a child to riding a bicycle through the Himalayas: During his 2026 Clinical Medical Award acceptance speech, #LaskerLaureate Tomoyuki Igawa shares how challenges outside of research have helped influence him as a scientist.
#Hemophilia A Treatment Pioneers Win Lasker Award
More than a decade of work led to a dual-targeting antibody mimic of a blood-clotting protein to treat hemophilia A. Three scientists received a #LaskerAward for their efforts
#Immunology #Science
#Hemophilia A Treatment Pioneers Win Lasker Award
More than a decade of work led to a dual-targeting antibody mimic of a blood-clotting protein to treat hemophilia A. Three scientists received a #LaskerAward for their efforts
#Immunology #Science
Presenting the 2026 Basic Medical Award, Lasker jury member Jeffrey Friedman mentions the challenges of living with narcolepsy and congratulates #LaskerAward winners Emmanuel Mignot and Masashi Yanagisawa for their work that has had “a major impact on treatment.” 🧪
🧪 Read how the 2026 Basic Medical Research #LaskerAward winners identified the brain peptide orexin and elucidated its role in narcolepsy: buff.ly/lNR6NYf
“The story of how orexin, a neuropeptide that maintains wakefulness, was identified and implicated in narcolepsy is no yawner,” Rita Rubin reports in @JAMA.com.
For Michael J. Fox, the recognition that comes with receiving the 2026 Public Service #LaskerAward “belongs to a much larger community,” The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research reports:
https://ow.ly/QyYR50ZNAhT
Albert Szent-Györgyi was born #OTD in 1893.
Szent-Györgyi won a Basic Medical Research #LaskerAward in 1954 for the discovery of actomyosin, the essential contractile element of muscle. 🧪 Learn more: http://ow.ly/ChOB50B7X0y
🧪 Watch Emmanuel Mignot’s & Masashi Yanasigawa’s dobermans and mice with narcolepsy (see mouse in lower right-hand corner).
They won a 2026 #LaskerAward for identifying the brain peptide orexin & discovering that orexin deficiency causes uncontrolled sleep in narcolepsy: https://ow.ly/JECv50ZNtsV
Robert Flaumenhaft tells us in the Journal of Clinical Investigation how Factor VIIIa replacement was both a “triumph and tragedy,” and which “inspirational step” ultimately led to a breakthrough in the management of hemophilia A.
In the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Clifford B. Saper congratulates the 2026 Basic Medical Research #LaskerAward winners Emmanuel Mignot and Masashi Yanagisawa for making “a ‘touchdown’ in the game of life that every basic scientist dreams about.”
#ICYMI, our 2026 #LaskerAward winners: Emmanuel Mignot & Masashi Yanagisawa; Kunihiro Hattori, Tomoyuki Igawa, Takehisa Kitazawa; & Michael J. Fox
🧪They exemplify the power of the global enterprise of #ScientificResearch & the benefits when we all work together to improve human health & wellbeing.
🧪 Here, Flora Peyvandi writes how Kunihiro Hattori, Tomoyuki Igawa, and Takehisa Kitazawa developed a prophylactic therapy for hemophilia A, for which they won a #LaskerAward: buff.ly/GYmrihW
“The discovery of orexins & their link to narcolepsy became central for understanding sleep–wake regulation itself.” 🧪Sebastiaan Overeem & Birgitte R. Kornum report in @nejm.org on the pivotal roles that #LaskerAward winners Mignot & Yanagisawa had in the discovery of orexin:
buff.ly/T3CPftu
🧠 In 1998 Masashi Yanagisawa found orexin, the brain's wakefulness switch, and why narcolepsy strikes.
Pharma then spent 28 years building the opposite: sleeping pills that block it.
He and Emmanuel Mignot just won the 2026 Lasker.
“Japanese sleep scientist Masashi Yanagisawa and three Japanese researchers who developed a #hemophilia treatment drug at Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. won Lasker Awards in medicine on Wednesday,” Kyodo News Official reports.
共同通信北米3支局 Kyodo News North America #Lasker2026 #LaskerAward 🧪
Hours before receiving a #LaskerAward, French researcher Emmanuel Mignot—who discovered one of the main molecules involved in sleep regulation—shared with L’Express in an exclusive interview “the behind-the-scenes of his work, and details the revolutions to come in the field." 🧪
Michael J. Fox’s “efforts show that celebrity can be used to make a meaningful impact. He did this by becoming an informed advocate who engaged scientists, policymakers, donors, and patients with equal authenticity.” —via Journal of Clinical Investigation