2012 Japan Prize Awarded to Trailblazers in Leukemia Research And Inventor of Highest-Performance Magnet.

The Japan Prize Foundation today announced that three American medical experts, Dr. Janet Rowley, the Blum-Riese Distinguished Service Professor of the University of Chicago, Dr. Brian Druker, Director of the Knight Cancer Institute at the Oregon Health & Science University, and Dr. Nicholas Lydon, Founder and Director of Blueprint Medicines in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have been selected as the winners of the 2012 Japan Prize for the field of healthcare and medical technology in recognition of their contribution to the development of a new therapeutic drug targeting cancer-specific molecules, called Imatinib.

Dr. Lydon earned a BS in biochemistry from the University of Leeds, England, and received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Dundee, Scotland.

A Japanese inventor, Dr. Masato Sagawa, has also been selected for the field of environment, energy and infrastructure. He was honored for the development of the world’s highest-performance neodymium-iron-boron (Nd-Fe-B) type permanent magnet and contribution to energy conservation.