The American Society of Hematology will present the following 2013 Honorific Awards at the Annual Meeting and Exposition, to be held in December in New Orleans:
* Sir David Weatherall, MD, Professor at the University of Oxford, will receive the Wallace H. Coulter Award for Lifetime Achievement in Hematology-the Society's highest honor-for his more than 50-year hematology career in research, leadership, and global health initiatives. With colleagues, Weatherall identified imbalanced globin chain production as the cause of thalassemia (essential for improving treatments and prevention strategies). Additional research improved prenatal diagnoses and iron chelation therapy. In 2002, Weatherall wrote a report on the application of genomics to global health for the World Health Organization.
In addition, in 1989, Weatherall established the Institute of Molecular Medicine at Oxford (which became the MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine in 2011-following his retirement and the University's partnership with the Medical Research Council. He was a founding member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, and in 1992 became the Regius Professor of Medicine Emeritus at the University of Oxford.
"His transformative work unveiling the molecular basis of inherited hematologic disorders has established him as a role model with a legacy that will endure for future generations of hematologists," ASH President Janis L. Abkowitz, MD, said in a news release.
* The Henry M. Stratton Medal will be awarded to: Nancy Andrews, MD, PhD, Dean of the School of Medicine and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs both at Duke University, for her accomplishments in the research of iron homeostasis; and to Elaine Jaffe, MD, Head of the Hematopathology Section of the Laboratory of Pathology in the Intramural Program of the National Cancer Institute, for her accomplishments in lymphoma research, specifically in understanding the pathophysiology and prognosis of malignant lymphomas and how they respond to treatment.
* The William Dameshek Prize will be awarded to Andrew S. Weyrich, PhD, Professor of Pathology and Internal Medicine at the University of Utah, for his research on the cellular and molecular causes of blood clots. His work focuses on the role of platelets in inflammation and thrombosis, and his research identified the mRNA splicing and translational mechanisms that allow platelets to respond to environmental changes.
* The E. Donnall Thomas Prize will be awarded to Katherine A. High, MD, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, the William H. Bennett Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and an attending physician at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, for her work in identify the molecular basis of hemophilia and developing novel genetic therapies to treat it. She will also present the accompanying award lecture, which she has titled "Sailing to Ithaca: Gene Therapy's Odyssey from Investigational Agent to Therapeutic Product."
* And, the Ernest Beutler Prize will be awarded to Kenneth Kaushansky, MD, Senior Vice President of Health Sciences and Dean of the School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, for his advances in hematopoiesis research, including the discovery of thrombopoietin; and to David J. Kuter, MD, DPhil, Director of the Mass General Cancer Hospital Center for Hematology and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, for his work in translating the understanding of cytokine signaling in megakaryopoiesis into clinical practice, which included the discovery of how thrombopoietin increases platelet numbers. Kaushansky and Kuter will also present the award lecture, titled "Thrombopoietin: From Molecule to Medicine," which they note will cover the basic biology of thrombopoietin and its effect on stem cells and megakaryocytes, as well as the clinical development of the recombinant thrombopoietin and its newer receptor agonists.