(Miami,
December 9, 2007) – The Wallace H. Coulter Foundation
and the American Society of Hematology (ASH) are proud to announce
the establishment of the Wallace H. Coulter Award for Lifetime
Achievement in Hematology. This Award is the society’s
highest honor and will recognize an individual who has demonstrated
a lifetime commitment and outstanding contribution to hematology,
and who has made a significant impact on education, research,
and/or practice. The first recipient of this annual award is
Ernest Beutler, MD, of the Scripps Research Institute, who will
be honored this December at the 49th ASH Annual Meeting in Atlanta.
Wallace H. Coulter was an engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur
who applied engineering principles to solve biomedical problems.
He invented the Coulter Principle in 1948. The Coulter Principle,
which led to the Coulter Counter, provides clinicians and scientists
with a high throughput, standardized method to count and size
particles or cells as they flow through an aperture. This simple,
but elegant invention revolutionized hematology and the practice
of laboratory medicine, pioneered the field of flow cytometry
and defined particle characterization. The invention continues
to be used today in the fields of medicine, biotechnology, and
pharmaceuticals, as well as food, beverage, ceramics, cosmetics,
toners and paint. Mr. Coulter received the first of his 82 patents
in 1953 and started his company, Coulter Corporation. The company
grew to become the world leader in cellular analysis equipment,
reagents and service. It remained private until purchased by
Beckman Instruments in 1997. The Wallace H. Coulter Foundation
was created in 1998 to continue his life-long pursuits.
Mr.
Coulter’s vision was “Science Serving Humanity”.
To accomplish this, he invested heavily in research with the
goal of transforming research laboratory advances into practical
solutions that benefited patients. He had a clear mission to
convert these scientific discoveries into medical products routinely
used for laboratory diagnostics and disease treatment, such as
the anti-CD20 radio immuno-therapeutic, marketed today as Bexxar™,
for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In 1989, Mr. Coulter received
the only Distinguished Achievement Award ever given by the American
Society of Hematology.
ASH
and the Coulter Foundation established the Wallace H. Coulter
Award
for Lifetime Achievement in Hematology to honor Wallace’s
legacy by recognizing others who have made outstanding contributions
in the field of hematology. “We’re grateful for the
longstanding partnership that ASH has with the Coulter Foundation,
and the selection of Dr. Beutler as the inaugural recipient of
this prestigious award could not be more fitting,” said
ASH President Andrew I. Schafer, MD, of the New York Presbyterian-Weill
Cornell Medical Center. “Dr. Beutler’s career has
had a tremendous impact on the field, leading to a better understanding
of biochemical and genetic causes underlying red blood cell disorders.”
“We are delighted and honored that Dr. Beutler is the
inaugural recipient of this Award. Few people know that he had
the opportunity to meet Wallace Coulter while working at the
University of Chicago in the early 1950s” said Sue Van,
President and CEO, WHCF.
Dr.
Beutler’s career as a physician-scientist has spanned
more than half a century. Among his many accomplishments, Dr.
Beutler originated the concept of X-chromosome inactivation in
human females, independently of mouse geneticist Mary Lyon, and
provided the first formal proof of this phenomenon – an
insight that has become one of the cornerstones of mammalian
genetics. He also developed screening tests for the genetic disorders
galactosemia and Gaucher’s disease. He is currently Professor
and Chairman, Department of Molecular and Experimental Medicine,
The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA.
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The
Wallace H. Coulter Foundation and the American Society 