Colorado State Researcher's Lifetime Contributions To Radiation Science Honored With Award From President Clinton
Thursday, June 12, 1997
FORT COLLINS--President Clinton today announced Colorado
State University researcher Mortimer Elkind and two other
scientists won the Enrico Fermi Award, the federal government's
oldest science and technology honor.
Elkind, 74, will jointly receive the award with H. Rodney
Withers, oncologist at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at
the University of California at Los Angeles who worked with
Elkind on improving radiation therapy of cancer. Richard Garwin,
physicist at IBM Research in New York and a consultant to the
U.S. Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratory in
Albuquerque, N.M., is the third Fermi Award recipient.
The Fermi Award, created in 1956, recognizes a lifetime of
achievement in the field of nuclear energy. The award honors the
memory of Enrico Fermi, who led a group of scientists in 1942
that achieved a self-sustained, controlled nuclear reaction at
the University of Chicago. Through the years, nuclear science has
broadened to many other fields, including medicine, astronomy,
archaeology and environmental science.
The presidential award carries a $100,000 honorarium and a
gold medal to be presented by U.S. Department of Energy Secretary
Federico Pe、a at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., in July.
"I am extremely honored to receive this award and to share
it with other scientists who have made such outstanding
contributions," said Elkind, a University Distinguished Professor
in the department of radiological health sciences. "To receive
the Enrico Fermi Award is most assuredly one of the highlights of
my scientific career."
Elkind was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and earned a doctorate
degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He worked at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., and
the Donner Laboratory at the University of California at
Berkeley. Elkind also was a professor of radiology at the
University of Chicago and a senior biophysicist at the Argonne
National Laboratory in Illinois.
He joined Colorado State in 1981 as a professor and chairman
of the former department of radiology and radiation biology. He
was named a University Distinguished Professor, the highest honor
given to faculty, in 1986.
Elkind has made significant scientific contributions in
radiation therapy of cancer over the course of his 45-year
career. Elkind worked with Withers, a practicing doctor, to
describe the response of normal and malignant cells to ionizing
radiation. Their findings led to a better understanding of how to
adjust radiation exposures for maximum effect on tumors with
minimum harm to normal tissue.
Elkind's research helped initiate the scientific basis for
current radiation therapy, which is administered to about one-
third of all cancer patients worldwide. His contribution was so
significant that the process by which cells repair radiation
damage is commonly known as Elkind Repair.
His current research focuses on how cells are induced to
become cancerous after exposure to radiation. His studies in
radiation-induced breast cancer suggest that, unlike other
tissues in the body, breast cells in susceptible women do not
fully repair themselves--even when there are long periods between
radiation exposures.
Elkind suggests that breast cancer is one of the leading
causes of death in women today because of diagnostic radiation
exposures such as mammography used 40 years ago, which could have
been 10 to 20 times higher than current mammography exposures.
"We are proud to have a scientist and teacher of Dr.
Elkind's stature at Colorado State University," said Judson
Harper, vice president for research and information technology.
"His contributions to radiation science changed the way radiation
exposures are delivered to patients. His tireless efforts
continue to shed new light on the biological effects of
radiation."
The Fermi Award marks the second major honor given to Elkind
this year. In April, Elkind traveled to Germany to receive the
Roentgen-Plakette Award, given in honor of physicist Wilhelm
Conrad Roentgen, the discoverer of X-rays.
Elkind has received many other distinguished national and
international awards throughout his career, including the E.O.
Lawrence Award from the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in 1967 and
the Charles F. Kettering Prize from the General Motors Cancer
Research Foundation in 1989. Elkind currently is a member on the
board of directors of the National Coalition for Cancer Research.
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