Lasker Award

In 1945 Albert Lasker and Mary Woodard Lasker created the Lasker Awards. Every year since then the award has been given to the living person considered to have made the greatest contribution to medical science or who has demonstrated public service on behalf of medicine. They are administered by the Lasker Foundation. The Lasker is sometimes referred to as "America's Nobels".

The Lasker Awards have gained a reputation for identifying future winners of the Nobel Prize. Eighty-six Lasker laureates have received the Nobel Prize, including 32 in the last two decades. Claire Pomeroy is the current president of the Lasker Foundation.

Award
The award is given in four branches of medical science:

The awards carry an honorarium of $250,000 for each category.
 * 1) Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award
 * 2) Lasker–DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award
 * 3) Lasker–Bloomberg Public Service Award (Renamed in 2011 from Mary Woodard Lasker Public Service Award. Renamed in 2000 from Albert Lasker Public Service Award.)
 * 4) Lasker–Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science (1994– renamed to that name in 2008) (optional)

A collection of papers from the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation were donated to the National Library of Medicine by Mrs. Albert D. Lasker in April 1985.

In addition to the main awards, there are historical awards that are no longer awarded.

Recent awards
Recent winners include the following:

Historical awards
Awards no longer made include Special Public Health Awards, Special Awards, Group Awards, and Lasker Awards made by the International Society for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled, the National Committee Against Mental Illness, and Planned Parenthood – World Population. Awards were also presented for medical journalism.

Special Public Health awards

 * 1975 – Merck Sharp and Dohme Research Laboratories: Karl H. Beyer Jr., James M. Sprague, John E. Baer, Frederick C. Novello
 * 1980 – National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
 * 1984 – Dorothy T. Krieger, Kevin McLaughlin Jr.
 * 1987 – Centennial Salute to the National Institutes of Health

Special awards

 * 1947 – Thomas Parran Jr.
 * 1949 – Haven Emerson
 * 1952 – Charles-Edward Amory Winslow
 * 1956 – Alan Gregg
 * 1959 – J. Lister Hill and John E. Fogarty

Group awards

 * 1946 – National Institutes of Health; National Regional Research Laboratory of the US Department of Agriculture; Board for the Coordination of Malarial Studies; Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine of the US Department of Agriculture; Army Epidemiological Board
 * 1947 – British Ministry of Health and Ministry of Food; United States Committee on Joint Causes of Death
 * 1948 – Veterans Administration's Department of Medicine and Surgery
 * 1949 – American Academy of Pediatrics; Life Insurance Medical Research Fund
 * 1950 – International Health Division of The Rockefeller Foundation
 * 1951 – Health Insurance Plan of Greater New York; Alcoholics Anonymous
 * 1953 – Division of Research Grants of the National Institutes of Health; University Laboratory of Physical Chemistry Related to Medicine at Harvard University
 * 1954 – Streptococcal Disease Laboratory, Armed Forces Epidemiological Board, Francis E. Warren Air Force Base: Charles H. Rammelkamp Jr., Director
 * 1956 – Food and Drug Administration; Medical Care Program, Welfare and Retirement Fund of the United Mine Workers of America
 * 1960 – Crippled Children's Program of the Children's Bureau; Chronic Disease Program of the California State Department of Public Health (Lester Breslow)

International Society for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled

 * 1954 – Henry H. Kessler, Juan Farill, Viscount Nuffield
 * 1957 – Howard A. Rusk, Fabian W. G. Langenskiold, World Veterans Federation
 * 1960 – Mary E. Switzer, Gudmund Harlem, Paul W. Brand
 * 1963 – Renato de Costa Bomfim, Kurt Jansson, Leonard W. Mayo
 * 1966 – Poul Stochholm, Wiktor Dega, Eugene J. Taylor
 * 1969 – Gustav Gringas, Mr and Mrs Raden Soeharso, Andre Trannoy, International Labour Organization
 * 1972 – James F. Garrett, Kamala V. Nimbkar, Jean Regniers

National Committee Against Mental Illness

 * 1944 – William C. Menninger
 * 1945 – G. Brock Chisholm, John Rawlings Rees
 * 1946 – W. Horsley Gantt, Jules H. Masserman, Walter Lerch, Douglass Rice Sharpe, Lawrence K. Frank
 * 1947 – Catherine MacKenzie
 * 1948 – C. Anderson Aldrich, Mike Gorman, Al Ostrow
 * 1949 – Mildred C. Scoville, Albert Deutsch

Planned Parenthood – World Population

 * 1945 – John McLeod, Felix J. Underwood
 * 1946 – Robert Latou Dickinson, Irl Cephas Riggin
 * 1947 – Alan F. Guttmacher, Abraham Stone
 * 1948 – John Rock, Richard N. Pierson
 * 1949 – George M. Cooper, Carl G. Hartman
 * 1950 – Margaret Sanger, Bessie L. Moses
 * 1951 – Guy Irving Burch, William Vogt
 * 1952 – John William Roy Norton, Herbert Thoms, Eleanor Bellows Pillsbury
 * 1953 – Harry Emerson Fosdick, Elise Ottesen-Jensen
 * 1954 – Dhanvanthi Rama Rau, M. C. Chang, Howard C. Taylor
 * 1955 – Warren O. Nelson, Robert Carter Cook
 * 1958 – Harrison S. Brown
 * 1959 – Julian Huxley
 * 1960 – Gregory Pincus
 * 1961 – John D. Rockefeller, III
 * 1964 – Cass Canfield
 * 1965 – C. Lee Buxton, Estelle T. Griswold