The developer of propofol has won the 2018 Lasker Award for clinical medical research, one of the most prestigious awards in medicine.
Veterinary anesthesiologist John B. Glen, BVMS, PhD, began developing propofol in the 1970s while working for ICI Pharmaceuticals, which was later acquired by AstraZeneca. Today, propofol is one of the most widely used drugs for intravenous anesthesia and is administered more than 60 million times per year in the U.S., according to the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation.
The other 2018 Lasker Awards winners include C. David Allis and Michael Grunstein for their work on gene expression, as well as Joan Argetsinger Steitz, a pioneer of RNA biology.
The Lasker Awards are presented annually by the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation. Each category comes with a $250,000 prize, and dozens of Lasker Awards recipients have gone on to win Nobel Prizes.
