Medicine: The Painkillers

Medicine's most powerful weapons against pain are the opiates, substances such as heroin and morphine that are derived from opium. But only in the past few years have scientists understood why and how the human body responds to these drugs from the poppy plant. For contributing to that understanding, three men last week won the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation's prestigious Basic Medical Research Award.

Sharing the $15,000 prize were Dr. Hans Kosterlitz of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, Pharmacologist John Hughes of the Imperial College...