Researchers who contributed to the development of a life-saving leukemia treatment and advances in reprogramming cells into a more versatile form will be given a prestigious medical research award.

The $250,000 US Lasker Awards will be presented Oct. 2 in New York by the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, the group announced on Monday.

Three researchers who helped to develop Gleevec, a drug for chronic myelogenous leukemia, will share the clinical medical research award.

"At one point they witnessed something no oncologist had seen before: Patients on the edge of death were climbing out of bed and leaving the hospital within one week of their first Gleevec dose," the foundation said in a release.

The three honourees are:

• Brian Druker, 54, of the Oregon Health & Science University.
• Nicholas B. Lydon, 42, formerly of Novartis AG.
• Charles L. Sawyers, 50, of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York.

Druker and Lydon's findings were important for developing the drug. Sawyer's research helped to overcome resistance to the drug in some patients.

John Gurdon, 76, of Cambridge University and Shinya Yamanaka, 47, of Kyoto University in Japan as well as the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease in San Francisco will share the award for basic medical research into stem cells.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Gurdon showed how DNA from specialized frog cells could be used to produce new tadpoles, since most cells retain all of the genetic information needed to form many tissues — findings that were important for cloning mammals like Dolly the sheep.

Yamanaka picked up on Gurdon's findings in 2006, showing fully differentiated mouse skin cells could be reprogrammed into stem cells that can specialize without using eggs.

The following year, he and others reported similar results in transforming human cells without destroying human embryos.

The final award in public service will go to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg for "employing sound science in political decision-making, setting a world standard for the public's health as an impetus for government action … advancing public health through enlightened philanthropy" and fighting tobacco use, the foundation said.

The honorarium applies for each category.