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Last week was prize week in the U.S. also. In New York the American Public Health Association and the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation announced winners of their 1960 Joint Awards in medical research. The recipients (who each received $2,500 and a Winged Victory statuette) included two scientists who are not medical researchers at all: German Engineer Ernst Ruska and U.S. Research Physicist James Hillier, who together are largely responsible for development of the electron microscope. Up to 500 times as powerful as the best optical microscope, the electron microscope has already given man his first look at viruses and promises to become one of medicine's most useful tools. Says Physicist Hillier, 45: "The electron microscope is like the monkey wrench on the garage wall; what you do with it is the important thing." Other Lasker Award winners:
¶ The U.S.'s James V. Neel and Britain's Lionel S. Penrose, for genetic studies and research into the effects of ionizing radiation on humans.
¶ Britain's Maurice Wilkins and Francis Crick, and U.S. Biologist James D. Watson, for studies of the structure of the deoxyribonucleic (DNA) acid molecule, one of the principal elements in cell metabolism and in transmission of inheritable characteristics.
*Limited to 24 living persons. Among the present members: ex-Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee, Poet T. S. Eliot.