The Lasker prize for public service was given to a researcher from Johns Hopkins University who built a website to monitor COVID-19 cases around the world.
The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation on Wednesday announced the $250,000 awards to honour breakthroughs in medical research.
Lauren Gardner, an engineer who researches the spread of illnesses, received the public service award.
The COVID-19 tracker was created by her lab team as the coronavirus started to spread globally in January 2020. The dashboard developed into a valuable tool that currently keeps tabs on global cases, deaths, immunizations, and more. The tracker has been made publicly accessible by the team throughout.
The dashboard set ‘a new standard for public health data science’ and helped inform both personal decisions and policy, the Lasker Foundation said in a release.
Yuk Ming Dennis Lo, a molecular biologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, received the award for medical research for developing a prenatal blood test that can screen for Down syndrome and other genetic disorders.
Lo discovered that the mother’s blood included foetal DNA, enabling genetic screening to be performed by blood test rather than a more invasive operation.
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