Actor Christopher Reeve, two scientists who discovered an arthritis therapy and a researcher who helped show how cells read their genes have won prestigious medical awards.

The prizes, from the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, will be awarded Friday in New York. In the last 11 years, 15 scientists who received one have gone on to win a Nobel Prize.

Reeve, 50, will receive the Lasker public service award for "perceptive, sustained and heroic advocacy" for medical research and for disabled people.

Best known for playing Superman in movies, Reeve took on a new role after he was paralyzed from the shoulders down in a 1995 accident. He now chairs the board of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, which finances research on spinal cord injury and other disorders of the Central Nervous System. It also seeks to improve quality of life for people with disabilities.