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The awards given out by the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation are widely
accepted as being good predictors of eventual Nobel laureates. The foundation
has a Web site at http://www. laskerfoundation.com but it was not working as New
Scientist went to press. This year’s winners were Mark Ptashne who works on gene
regulation at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (http://www.mskcc.org)
and Alfred Sommer of Johns Hopkins University (http://www.jhu.edu/) for work on
vitamin A therapy in the developing world. An award for special achievement was
given to Victor McKusick, also at Johns Hopkins, for his work on the genetic
basis of disease. From the University home page there is a link to information
about both researchers.