Four Japanese Scientists Win Lasker Awards for Sleep Peptide and Hemophilia Drug Discoveries

The Lasker Foundation of the United States on Wednesday awarded its prestigious medical research prizes to four Japanese scientists. Masashi Yanagisawa, 66, a professor at Japan's University of Tsukuba, received the basic medical research award for discovering orexin, a brain peptide, in 1998. The foundation said the discovery significantly advanced understanding of sleep and arousal mechanisms.

Yanagisawa's research on transgenic mice lacking orexin found behavioral abnormalities similar to narcolepsy, a sleep disorder marked by sudden excessive sleepiness, and the work contributed to the development of a fundamental treatment. "The honor is more than I deserve," Yanagisawa said in a statement. "The fact that I received the highest academic award for my research in the field of sleep science, which has not attracted much attention, is very encouraging as I hope for further development in this field."

The foundation also awarded three researchers from Japan's Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. the clinical medical research prize for developing Hemlibra, a treatment for hemophilia A. The team, Kunihiro Hattori, 66, a former senior fellow at the company; Takehisa Kitazawa, 57, deputy head of its research division; and Tomoyuki Igawa, 49, head of the division, developed an antibody that works as a clotting factor missing in hemophilia A patients. Their work led to a drug that is easier to administer and gives continuous protection against bleeding.

The four are the first Japanese recipients of the Lasker Awards since Kazutoshi Mori, a special professor emeritus at Kyoto University, won in 2014. Kyoto University professor Shinya Yamanaka, who developed induced pluripotent stem cells, known as iPS cells, received the Lasker prize in 2009, before he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2012.