“The idea of spending your time digging into mysteries…I thought that would be a wonderful way to spend your life.” Evelyn Witkin did spend her life digging into mysteries, and she was recognized with the 2015 Lasker Award for her work that solved one—how some bacteria survived 100x the radiation that killed other cells. Witkin discovered the DNA-damage response, a genetically regulated emergency system that protects the genomes of all living organisms. In an interview with Emmy-nominated writer/director/podcaster Flora Lichtman, Witkin talks about what it was like to be at Cold Spring Harbor in the 1950s, when many major discoveries in molecular biology were made, and tells us a little bit about her hobby in retirement: Victorian poetry.

The venom of the Brazilian pit viper Bothrops jararaca causes a sudden and catastrophic drop in blood pressure. Armed with this knowledge, David Cushman and Miguel Ondetti set out to isolate the active component. In this 1999 interview with Princeton University professor Leon Rosenberg, Cushman tells the story of their Lasker Award-winning work that resulted in ACE inhibitors for the treatment of hypertension. Cushman and Ondetti were recognized not only for their development of a life-saving medication, but also for their innovative approach to drug design. Listen to the incredible story of captopril, one of the first drugs developed through rational design. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. The transcript of the entire 43-minute interview, along with the transcript for a 54-minute interview with Ondetti, can be found here: http://ow.ly/wGL750Oo4uQ

Oliver Smithies freely admits that he did not find a solution to the problem he set out to solve, but he was able to turn his initial failure into a success that forever changed biomedical research. The gene targeting method that Smithies developed made it possible to generate knockout mice as models for human disease. In this 2001 interview with Raju Kucherlapati, Smithies talks about his education, his Award-winning work, and why research is a bit like flying an airplane.     This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. Find the entire interview here: https://vimeo.com/146792245 

After meeting a young man dying of renal failure, Willem Kolff could not shake the thought that there was a simple solution: remove urea from the blood. Using sausage skin and an enamel tub, Kolff made the rotating drum artificial kidney. This was the beginning of renal hemodialysis, now a widely used intervention for those suffering from kidney failure. In this 2002 interview, Kolff shares stories from his nearly seven-decade career, which began in pre-war Holland and took him all the way to the University of Utah.  This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. Find the entire 49-minute video here: http://ow.ly/YGji50Nb6oQ

In vitro fertilization has become fairly common, but have you ever stopped to think about the fundamental research that was required to make it possible? Just figuring out how to properly fertilize the eggs in a petri dish took five years. Listen in as 2001 Lasker Laureate Robert G. Edwards tells the story of how he met Patrick Steptoe, his essential collaborator in making IVF a reality, shares the ethical dilemmas they faced, and reflects on the legacy of their decisions. Read more about the Award: http://ow.ly/k0IF50KhaZx

In this 2002 interview, Lasker Award and Nobel Prize winner Eric Kandel speaks with the then-newly minted Lasker Laureate James Darnell Jr. Darnell won the 2002 Albert Lasker Special Achievement Award in Medical Science for an exceptional career that opened two fields in biology—RNA processing and cytokine signaling—and for his dedication to the development of many creative scientists. Darnell shares his journey from his childhood home in rural Mississippi to training alongside preeminent scientists at the NIH, details how he made his discoveries, and talks about important findings made by other groups. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. Find the entire 42-minute interview here: http://ow.ly/36MY50Kgi2e

“If we’re smart enough to figure out the cause of something, we can intervene to change the effects.” William Foege won the 2001 Lasker Award for Public Service for his courageous leadership in improving worldwide public health. Here, Foege is interviewed by Allan Rosenfield of Columbia University. Foege talks about working to eradicate smallpox in a country torn by civil war, reveals his moment of greatest pride as the director of the CDC, and shares a story about introducing a new strain of corn in Africa. Read about the 2001 Mary Woodard Lasker Public Service Award: http://ow.ly/9vIQ50JhLMg

We’ve been hearing a lot about immunology the past two years since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. But can you explain how our immune system works? 2007 Lasker Laureate Ralph Steinman discovered dendritic cells, the preeminent component of the immune system that initiates and regulates the body’s response to foreign antigens. He discusses how he got interested in science, what it felt like to receive a Lasker Award, and eloquently explains how dendritic cells protect us from pathogens.   Read more about Steinman’s Award-winning work: http://ow.ly/UH7R50J0C5R

“I was forty-seven years old before I did anything that people would really look at twice.” Janet Rowley’s discovery of chromosomal translocations made it possible to diagnose cancer at the molecular level, and her work earned her a Lasker Award. But getting there wasn’t easy. In this interview, given before the 1998 Awards, Rowley talks to former NIH Director Francis Collins and shares stories of her life before she made her groundbreaking discoveries. She had to wait nine months to start medical school because the quota for women (3 out of a class of 65) had been filled, she worked part time for twenty years while she raised her four sons, and it took almost ten years before anything noteworthy came out of her research. Through it all, she chose to enjoy what she had instead of getting discouraged. This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity. Find the entire 40-minute interview here: http://ow.ly/ZJrB50Iumei

In this 1996 interview between Lasker Award winner Paul Zamecnik and three-time Emmy Award-winning journalist Richard Cohen, Zamecnik tells us about how he got into basic research as WWII was imminent, about not winning the Nobel prize, and his chance encounters that led him to ask the question: “How do you make a protein, anyway?”. Zamecnik was recognized for six decades of brilliant and original science, including the development of antisense DNA, a technology that enables selective inhibition of gene expression and revolutionized biochemistry.   Learn more about Zamecnik’s Award-winning work: http://ow.ly/2j0N50IcYNM