AABB23: Presenting the First-Ever Landsteiner-Alter Award

Today was a monumental day in AABB history. Four renowned scientists – Jeffrey Carson, MD, MACP; Paul Hébert, MD, MA, MHSc, FRCPC, FCAHS; Nancy Heddle, MSc, FCSMLS(D); and Ian Roberts, MD – became the first recipients of AABB’s newly renamed Landsteiner-Alter Award.

AABB initiated this award – one of the most prestigious in the blood and biotherapies field – in 1954 as the Karl Landsteiner Memorial Award, honoring Karl Landsteiner, MD, “the father of transfusion medicine.” AABB renamed it as the Landsteiner-Alter Award to also honor Harvey Alter, MD, longtime AABB member and leader in transfusion medicine, who received the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

The Landsteiner-Alter Award recognizes a scientist whose original research has resulted in an important contribution to the body of scientific knowledge. In addition, the scientist who receives the award should have an international reputation in transfusion medicine or biotherapies. 

Leading the award ceremony, AABB President Brian Gannon said he was “proud to preside over the first-ever presentation of the Landsteiner-Alter Award.” Gannon said the four honorees – Carson, Hébert, Heddle and Roberts – were outstanding scientists who were selected for this award “in recognition of their influential careers that have advanced novel methodologies and execution of large-scale clinical trials of the efficacy, safety, and complications of transfusion therapies.”

For the first-ever presentation of the Landsteiner-Alter Award, AABB was fortunate to have Dr. Alter himself in attendance. Alter was called to the podium and said that he was honored that AABB had added his name to the prestigious award and congratulated this year’s recipients. Then Alter, who, among his peers in the blood community, has been known for his wordplay almost as much as his research, recited a comical biographical poem that delighted the audience.   

Each of the four honorees received their award and spoke for ten to fifteen minutes about their research and career, noting that the work for which they were being recognized had developed over the course of decades.

As the event concluded, Gannon congratulated the four recipients again. “On behalf of AABB and the blood and biotherapies community, thank you for your work and congratulations on this deserving recognition,” he told them.