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The Lasker Award vs. the Nobel Prize: What's the Difference?

The Lasker Award and Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine compared

⏱ In 30 Seconds

✓ The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is a global award presented to no more than three laureates in a single year.
✓ The Lasker Awards recognize basic research, clinical translation, public service and career-spanning contributions to medical science.
✓ Many Lasker laureates later receive Nobel Prizes, earning the Lasker its nickname, “America’s Nobel.”
✓ The awards often recognize the same transformative science, but they differ in origin, scope, categories and selection process.

A Personal Note

I had known about the Nobel Prize for as long as I can remember, but for many years I knew surprisingly little about the Lasker Awards.

That changed a few years ago at my institute. Near the third-floor elevator, I noticed a photograph displayed on the glass wall of a laboratory showing Jacques Miller holding his Lasker Award trophy.

It made me wonder: What exactly is the Lasker Award, and how does it compare with the Nobel Prize? I started looking into it, and discovered a fascinating connection between the two. That question eventually became this article.

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Many Nobel Prize winners received a Lasker Award first.

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Many Lasker laureates have later received Nobel Prizes—often years later, and occasionally in the same year.

The connection is strong enough that the Lasker Awards are often called “America’s Nobel.”

But the two prizes are not the same. They differ in their history, scope, categories and selection process.

Scale and Scope

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is global—one of six categories within the broader Nobel Prizes. It is awarded by Sweden’s Nobel Assembly to no more than three people in a single year, drawn from any country, institution or field of medical science.

The Lasker Awards are American in origin and, historically, in orientation, although their pool of laureates has become increasingly international over the decades.

Rather than presenting one medical prize, the Lasker Foundation recognizes achievement across several distinct categories:

Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award
Lasker–DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award
Lasker–Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science
Lasker–Bloomberg Public Service Award, presented periodically

This structure allows the Lasker Awards to recognize a wider range of contributions in a single year—not only fundamental discoveries, but also clinical translation, career-spanning scientific leadership and public health advocacy.

Origins: A Scientific Institution vs. Two Advertising-World Philanthropists

The Nobel Prizes were established through the will of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish chemist and inventor of dynamite, and have been administered by Swedish and Norwegian institutions since 1901.

The Lasker story is different, and distinctly American.

The awards were established in 1945 by Albert Lasker, an influential advertising executive, and his wife, Mary Woodard Lasker, a health advocate who spent much of her life campaigning for a dramatic expansion of medical research funding in the United States.

Neither was a scientist.

Their goal was not simply to honor discoveries. They also wanted to draw public attention to medical research at a time when funding for it in the United States was limited.

Albert brought the tools of public persuasion that had shaped his advertising career, while Mary became one of the most influential advocates for expanding the National Institutes of Health.

Selection Process

Both prizes rely on expert nominations and rigorous internal deliberation, but the Lasker Jury has a distinctive feature.

For many years, it has been chaired by Joseph L. Goldstein, recipient of both the 1985 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award and the 1985 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

The Lasker Jury has spoken publicly about seeking discoveries characterized by originality, boldness and surprise—the kind of work that overturns a field’s assumptions rather than merely extending existing knowledge.

This overlap in scientific philosophy helps explain why the Lasker Awards have so often anticipated later Nobel recognition.

The Numbers Behind “America’s Nobel”

The relationship between the two awards is well documented. Roughly 87 Lasker laureates have gone on to win Nobel Prizes, with about 40 of them receiving Nobel recognition during the past three decades.

In the Basic Medical Research category, the overlap has been especially striking: close to half of its laureates have eventually been recognized by the Nobel committee. The Australian history of this relationship includes Frank Macfarlane Burnet and Jacques Miller, whose foundational immunology discoveries were recognised internationally.

History offers several memorable examples.

Carl Cori received the first Lasker Basic Medical Research Award in 1946 and won the Nobel Prize one year later, alongside his wife and research partner, Gerty Cori.
James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins received a Lasker Award in 1960 for the discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, two years before their 1962 Nobel Prize.
Peter Doherty and Rolf Zinkernagel received a Lasker Award in 1995 for revealing how immune cells recognize virus-infected cells, followed by the Nobel Prize in 1996.
Elizabeth Blackburn received a Lasker Award in 2006 for her telomerase research and a Nobel Prize in 2009.
More recently, Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman received a Lasker Award in 2021 for discoveries that enabled mRNA vaccine technology, followed by the Nobel Prize in 2023.

Not every Lasker laureate becomes a Nobel laureate, and the reverse is also true: some Nobel Prizes recognize scientists or discoveries that the Lasker Jury never selected.

Nevertheless, the overlap is large enough that when the Lasker Awards are announced each September, one question naturally follows:

Could one of these discoveries eventually receive a Nobel Prize?

Is the Lasker Really a Preview of the Nobel Prize?

Sometimes—but certainly not always.

The long list of scientists who received a Lasker before a Nobel explains why the comparison is so tempting. But the two awards are selected independently, and winning a Lasker does not mean that a Nobel Prize will follow.

What the overlap does show is that both awards have repeatedly recognised discoveries that fundamentally changed biomedical science.

That is probably the most interesting reason to pay attention when the next Lasker laureates are announced.

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This article is intended for general educational purposes. Award counts and institutional details may change as new laureates are announced.

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What is the Difference Between the Lasker Award and the Nobel Prize?