In July 2023, we changed our name from AACC (short for the American Association for Clinical Chemistry) to the Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine (ADLM). The following page was written prior to this rebranding and contains mentions of the association’s old name. It may contain other out-of-date information as well.
Dr. Young has made significant contributions to AACC and to laboratory medicine. He is well known for his work as the principal editor and driving force behind the monumental Effects Series, a landmark collection of texts on the effects of drugs, disease, preanalytical variables, and herbals on laboratory tests. He spearheaded the transition of this work to an online database with information on more than 135,000 effects on more than 5,000 tests.
2009 Award for Outstanding Contributions through Service to the Profession of Clinical Chemistry
Dr. Young is the acting director of clinical chemistry at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He has been active in AACC for many years, and served it in many capacities, including as president, council chair, and publications board chair. He currently chairs the Task Force on Collaboration with Clinical Societies. He has been remarkably active in his service to other organizations as well. He has served on the executive council of the Academy of Clinical Laboratory Physicians and Scientists and as co-chair of four of its annual meetings. He chaired the automation commission of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. He has served the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine as president, vice president, publications chair, and in many other positions. He has served on many government advisory committees, including for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and National Institutes of Health. He has served on the editorial boards of a variety of journals, including Clinical Chemistry (which he chaired), Analytical Letters, and Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biochemical Analysis. He has published more than 200 papers and book chapters, and edited influential books, including the Directory of Rare Analyses, Effects of Drugs on Clinical Laboratory Tests, and Effects of Disease on Clinical Laboratory Tests. He is currently editor of Young’s Effects Online.
1980 AACC Past President’s Award
Dr. Young served as AACC president in 1980.
1977 Outstanding Contributions to Clinical Chemistry
Donald S. Young will receive the 1977 AACC Award for Outstanding Contributions to Clinical Chemistry, sponsored by the Ames Corp. This will be the 26th year that this award has been presented.
Dr. Young joined the AACC in 1966 when he was a visiting scientist in the Clinical Pathology Department of the Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health. He subsequently became chief of the Clinical Chemistry Service of the department in 1967. Before coming to NIH, Dr. Young had received the M.B. degree at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, and the Ph.D. degree in chemical pathology from the Postgraduate Medical School in London. He also was a Lecturer in Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Aberdeen and did his residency training at the Postgraduate Medical School and Hammersmith Hospital, London.
Dr. Young has served the AACC in many capacities. He has been chairman of the Capital Section. He has been a member of the Committees on Standards, Foreign Relations, and Science; he is currently a member of the board of directors, a councillor, and chairman of the Publications Board and of the Board of Editors of Clinical Chemistry.
Dr. Young has been active in several other professional societies. He is currently a member of the board of directors of the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards and a member of the executive committee of the Academy of Clinical Laboratory Physicians and Scientists. He is a member of the Clinical Chemistry Section of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and chairman of its Automation Commission. He is a member of the nominating committee of the International Federation for Clinical Chemistry.
Dr. Young has served on many advisory committees for government agencies, including several committees for different institutes of the National Institutes of Health. He has also served on committees for the Center for Disease Control, National Bureau of Standards, and Oak Ridge National Laboratories. He currently is a co-chairman of the Symposium on Advanced Analytical Concepts for the Clinical Laboratory, as he also was in 1976. He has served on a committee of the National Commission on Productivity.
Dr. Young’s research interests have been directly associated with improvements in laboratory performance, optimizing the usefulness of laboratory data, use of computers, and evaluating usefulness of new analytical concepts such as microcalorimetry, the miniature centrifugal analyzer, and kinetic nephelometry. He has worked with the National Bureau of Standards on developing Reference Methods.
He is the author or co-author of more than 70 papers and has served as co-editor of the AACC monograph on The Neonate, Clinical Biochemistry, Physiology, and Pathology and the co-compiler of an annotated bibliography on Effects of Drugs on Clinical Laboratory Tests. He currently is editing two other books.
Dr. Young received the Joseph H. Roe Award of the Capital Section in 1973, the Gerard B. Lambert Award in 1974–5, and the Gerulat Award of the New Jersey Section in 1977.