Four Japanese researchers win Lasker Awards for sleep discovery and hemophilia drug

On Wednesday, four Japanese scientists were honored with Lasker Awards in medicine. Professor Masashi Yanagisawa of the University of Tsukuba earned the basic research prize together with Stanford professor Emmanuel Mignot after uncovering orexin, a brain peptide essential for staying awake, and showing that its deficiency causes narcolepsy in mice. The clinical research award recognized Kunihiro Hattori, Tomoyuki Igawa and Takehisa Kitazawa of Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. for developing Hemlibra, a novel drug that helps patients with hemophilia clot blood more effectively.

The awards, presented by the New York-based Lasker Foundation, are often seen as indicators of future Nobel laureates. This is the first Japanese win since Kazutoshi Mori of Meijo University received a Lasker 12 years ago. Yanagisawa expressed pride that sleep science had been acknowledged at this level.