​The Discovery Pillar is proud to highlight the Lasker Foundation's recent announcement of the 2025 Lasker Award winners in basic research, clinical research, special achievement, and public service. Two former ACS grantees were among this year's awardees.

• Steven L. McKnight at the University of Texas Southwestern won the 2025 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award for his work on structures and functions of low-complexity domains (shared award with Dr. Dirk Görlich). This basic research uncovered unique properties of certain proteins that may contribute to certain disease pathologies. He held an ACS Faculty Research Award from 1984 to 1989 at the Carnegie Institute of Washington in Baltimore, MD.

• Lucy Shapiro at Stanford University won the 2025 Lasker~Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science for her pioneering approach to bacterial cell biology and national leadership, sounding an early alarm on the emerging threat of antibiotic resistance. She received an early career grant from ACS from 1968 to 1976 at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and several additional ACS grants between 1988 and 1994 at Stanford. Dr. Shapiro has also been a mentor on at least four other ACS grants, including two postdoctoral fellows, extending her legacy.

The Lasker Awards program was created in 1945 by Albert and Mary Lasker to spotlight fundamental biological research discoveries and clinical advances that improve human health and to draw attention to the importance of public support of science. The Lasker Awards are among the highest honors given in science and often serve as a precursor to winning a Nobel Prize. The public service award is given every other year and will next be offered in 2026.