Lasker Awards go to sleep and hemophilia researchers and Michael J. Fox
The 2026 Lasker Awards for basic medical research, clinical medical research and public service will be presented in New York, United States, on September 17. The laureates include scientists honored for studying sleep mechanisms and developing a treatment for hemophilia A, as well as actor Michael J. Fox for supporting Parkinson’s disease research, Live Science reports.
The recipients of each of the three awards will receive $250,000. The winners were announced by the Lasker Foundation, established in 1942 by philanthropists and public health advocates Albert and Mary Lasker.
Sleep research
The Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research was given to Emmanuel Mignot of the Stanford University School of Medicine and Masashi Yanagisawa of the University of Tsukuba in Japan. Independently of each other, they discovered orexins — substances in the brain that help regulate the sleep-wake cycle.
Orexin deficiency is linked to some forms of narcolepsy, a neurological disorder involving excessive daytime sleepiness and sometimes cataplexy, or sudden episodes of muscle weakness. Their research contributed to the development of orexin receptor antagonist drugs for treating insomnia, as well as agonists of these receptors for treating narcolepsy. The first drug in the latter group was approved in August.
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Hemophilia and Parkinson’s research
The Lasker—DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award was received by Kunihiro Hattori, Takehisa Kitazawa and Tomoyuki Igawa, who are affiliated with the Japanese pharmaceutical company Chugai Pharmaceutical. They developed the antibody emicizumab, known by the trade name Hemlibra, to treat hemophilia A.
In this disease, caused by a genetic mutation, the body produces insufficient factor VIII, a protein needed for blood clotting. Emicizumab binds clotting factors IX and X, replicating the function of the missing factor VIII. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the drug in 2017, and it was subsequently authorized in more than 100 countries. According to the award announcement, more than 30,000 people have received the treatment.
The Lasker—Bloomberg Public Service Award was given to actor and founder of The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research Michael J. Fox. He disclosed his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis in 1998. According to the award announcement, the foundation he established in 2000 has funded more than $3 billion in Parkinson’s disease research.
