Two San Diego scientists win Lasker Award for developing way to fight cystic fibrosis

A pair of San Diego scientists who helped develop a treatment for cystic fibrosis, a life-threatening genetic disorder that damages people’s organs, have been named recipients of a 2025 Lasker Award, a coveted biomedical honor whose recipients often go on to win a Nobel Prize.

Paul A. Negulescu of Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Tito Gonzalez of Integro Theranostics will share the Lasker Foundation’s clinical medical research award with Michael J. Welsh of the University of Iowa, the foundation said Thursday.

The researchers “illuminated how the protein that underlies this lethal genetic disease normally works and what goes wrong in people with the illness,” the New York-based foundation said in a statement. “These discoveries broke open the possibility of finding small molecules that could correct the misbehaving protein.”

Their research also led to the creation of a triple-drug combination treatment that has helped make cystic fibrosis a manageable condition for many. Dozens of scientists who have won a Lasker Award have gone on to win a Nobel, including Roger Tsien at UC San Diego and Roger Guillemin of the Salk Institute.