NEW YORK (AP) - Six scientists have won prestigious Lasker medical awards for research that inclally eliminated the risk of hepatitis from transfusions.

The $50,000 award for basic research will be shared by Drs. Aaron Chiechanover and Avram Hershko of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa and Alexander Varshavsky of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

They discovered a complex procedure cells use to destroy unneeded proteins, based on a small targeting protein called ubiquitin. This process influences a wide range of activities, such as cell division and embryonic development.

The Lasker foundation will present its $25,000 award for special achievement in medical science to Sydney Brenner, founder and president of the Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, Calif., for ''50 years of brilliant creativity.''

Brenner established the existence of messenger RNA, the copy of genetic material that cells use to make proteins.

Turning to embryonic development and the nervous system in the 1960s, Brenner and colleagues worked out the detailed nerve wiring of the tiny worm called C. elegans and launched other investigations in the creature, raising it to a central place in experimental biology.

(From AP)