The Lasker Foundation - 75th Anniversary
The Lasker Foundation
75th Anniversary
We were delighted to partner with the Lasker Foundation to create a series of four whiteboard animations. The Lasker Foundation is a small, prestigious foundation founded by Albert and Mary Lasker 75 years ago. They advocate for a healthier world through biomedical research, and every year they allocate The Lasker Awards, America’s most prestigious biomedical award.
The Brief
With this project, we aimed to celebrate Lasker laureates' contributions to medical research in the 74 years since the awards began. But considering that hundreds of Lasker awards have been awarded for all sorts of achievements in biomedical research, this was no mean feat!
We decided to narrow the focus to a smaller (yet still huge) theme: Cancer. In the US, one in two men and one in three women will be diagnosed with cancer during their lifetime. So, we wanted to shine a spotlight on the scientists, clinicians, public servants, and others who have advanced our understanding, diagnosis, treatment, and awareness of cancer.
The target audience was science-minded college students and those interested in science.
The Explainer Video
We created four films together, each of which The Lasker Foundation and We Are Cognitive are delighted with.
Each focused on Lasker winners within a different award category: The Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, The Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, the Lasker-Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science, and the Lasker-Bloomberg Public Service Award.
A lot of care went into the details, including molecules and equipment. (‘Is the DNA double helix right or left-handed?’; ‘How many rungs of the ladder per rotation?’; ‘What does the Philadelphia chromosome look like under a microscope?’)
Some common elements tied the films together so they felt like a set: the distinctive blue, purple, and green colour scheme, greyscale portraits of the winners, and flowing ribbon motif.
These animations serve as an opportunity to pause and marvel at how far we’ve come - reflected in more target treatments and falling death rates for many cancers.
A cure for cancer is lauded as the holy grail of medical research—synonymous with a miracle. But the more we learn about this dreaded disease and its hundreds of forms, the more we see its mind-boggling complexities. It was important to The Lasker Foundation that the complexity of biological processes would emerge, putting into context just how remarkable these discoveries are.
The Client
The Lasker Foundation aims to improve health by accelerating support for medical research through recognition of research excellence, advocacy, and education
The Context
Find out more about the work of the Lasker Foundation by visiting their website.