Inventors of OCT Named Winners of 2023 Lasker Awards
The Lasker Foundation announced the winners of its 2023 Lasker Awards. Established in 1945 by Mary and Albert Lasker, the Lasker Awards recognize the contributions of leaders who have made major advances in the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, cure, and prevention of human disease. Each award carries an honorarium of $250,000 for each category.
The 2023 Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award
The 2023 Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award honors James G. Fujimoto, David Huang, and Eric A. Swanson, for the invention of optical coherence tomography (OCT), a technology that revolutionized ophthalmology, allowing rapid detection of diseases that impair vision, including major causes of blindness: diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, and macular degeneration.
Until the 1990s, ophthalmologists relied on examination techniques that produced limited and subjective results. Mr. Fujimoto (an expert in ultrashort lasers) enlisted Dr. Huang (then an MD-PhD student) to harness a light-based phenomenon called interference to see into biological structures such as the retina. They partnered with Mr. Swanson—an engineer with experience in intersatellite laser communications—and together their work increased the speed and efficacy of the invention. Their efforts led to the development of compact and practical equipment to scan a high-resolution cross-section of the inside of the eye.
Building on their pioneering findings, published in 1991, techniques have been further advanced, leading to noninvasive and precise detection of medical conditions, allowing earlier diagnoses than ever before. Today, more than 30 million OCT procedures are performed annually worldwide, approximately one every second. OCT is now being applied in additional medical arenas, such as cardiology, surgical guidance, gastroenterology, and dermatology.
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The other award winners include:
The 2023 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award
Demis Hassabis and John Jumper (Google DeepMind)
The 2023 Lasker~Koshland Special Achievement Award
Piet Borst (Netherlands Cancer Institute)
More details on the Lasker Award recipients, the full citations for each award category, video interviews and photos of the awardees, and additional information on the Foundation, are available at www.laskerfoundation.org. The awards will be presented at a gala ceremony in New York City on Friday, September 29, 2023.