On Sept. 27 Belding Scribner will receive a 2002 Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research for his role in the development of renal hemodialysis, a technological advance that has revolutionized the treatment of acute and chronic kidney failure. Scribner, UW professor emeritus of medicine, will receive the award with Willem Kolff of the University of Utah School of Medicine during a luncheon at the Pierre Hotel in New York City.
Scribner devised a system for repeating hemodialysis over a period of months and even years thereby prolonging the lives of many patients. He is well known as the developer of a U-shaped Teflon tube that became known as the "Scribner shunt" used in dialysis.
Scribner, now 81, served as head of the Division of Nephrology in the UW School of Medicine from 1958 to 1982. He recently received a lifetime achievement award at the 8th International Symposium on Hemodialysis and 22nd Annual Dialysis Conference for his work.
Lasker Award recipients each receive an honorarium, a citation highlighting their achievements, and an inscribed statuette of the Winged Victory of Samothrace, the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation’s traditional symbol of humankind’s victory over disability, disease, and death. The Lasker Awards, first presented in 1946, are administered by the Albert & Mary Lasker Foundation.
A full list of Lasker Award recipients and a description of the foundation are available online.
September 27, 2002