Stanley Falkow, a Stanford University cancer research scientist, has won the 2008 Lasker-Koshland Award for Special Achievement in Medical Science, which includes a $300,000 cash prize.

The Lasker Awards are sometimes called "America's Nobels."

Known as a microbe hunter, Falkow has spent his career studying how bacteria cause human disease. His work initially was study bacteria in a mold, but he began focusing his microscope of the bacteria that survived.

"Dr. Stanley Falkow is one of the most remarkable and respected scientists of our time," Philip Pizzo, dean of the Stanford School of Medicine, said. "His elegant research contributions to the field of bacterial pathogenesis, which he fathered, have been enhanced by his incredible leadership as a teacher and mentor for a generation of physicians and scientists worldwide."

"There's an irreverent, playful joyfulness to the way Stanley does science," David Relman, a Stanford professor of infectious disease and microbiology and immunology, said.

Falkow, 74, became interested in microbes when he was 11 years old and took out a book from his local library in Rhode Island which told the stories of famous scientists, and then he worked at a local toy store in exchange for a small microscope.

The award will be presented Sept. 26 in New York City.

— Don Kazak