Every year since then the award has been given to the living person considered to have made the greatest contribution to medical science or who has demonstrated public service on behalf of medicine.

The Lasker Awards have gained a reputation for identifying future winners of the Nobel Prize.

Eighty-six Lasker laureates have received the Nobel Prize, including 32 in the last two decades.

[1][2] Claire Pomeroy is the current president of the Lasker Foundation.

[3] A collection of papers from the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation were donated to the National Library of Medicine by Mrs. Albert D. Lasker in April 1985.