AACC NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Peter Patterson
(202) 835-8718
1-800-892-1400 ext. 718

Washington, DC, October 15, 2008  AACC and the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation are pleased to announce the signing of an agreement under which the Association will receive a grant to undertake educational training and development in clinical laboratory medicine in resource limited countries worldwide.  The Association will also rename its preeminent award, the national lectureship, in honor of Wallace H. Coulter, inventor of the Coulter Principle and a founder of the Coulter Corporation. AACC President Larry Broussard, PhD, said of the recasting of the award, “AACC is honored to commemorate Wallace Coulter’s outstanding contributions to diagnostics by naming our most prestigious lecture in his memory.  His championship of research and innovation will be celebrated with lectures by modern day leaders in health care that will honor his significant legacy.”                                                           

The Foundation will make substantial grants to the Association for the next five years, culminating in an endowment in 2013, the 100^th anniversary of Wallace H. Coulter’s birth.

“We chose to make this gift to AACC because of its excellent educational programs and worldwide leadership, two passions that Wallace Coulter embraced during his remarkable career in the diagnostics industry,” said Sue Van, President of the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation. “We hope that this funding will jump start programs that improve healthcare in the developing world, continuing Wallace Coulter’s efforts to advance the collective knowledge about laboratory medicine.”

AACC (American Association for Clinical Chemistry) is a leading professional society dedicated to improving healthcare through laboratory medicine.  Its nearly 10,000 members are clinical laboratory professionals, physicians, research scientists, and others involved in developing tests and directing laboratory operations.  AACC brings this community together with programs that advance knowledge, expertise, and innovation.

Wallace H. Coulter was an engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur who applied engineering principles to solve biomedical problems.  He invented the Coulter Principle, which led to the Coulter Counter, a breakthrough device that provides clinicians and scientists with a high throughput, standardized method to count and size particles or cells as they flow through an aperture.  This simple, but elegant invention revolutionized hematology and the practice of laboratory medicine, pioneered the field of flow cytometry and defined particle characterization.  This innovation continues to be used today in the fields of medicine, biotechnology, and pharmaceuticals, as well as food, beverage, ceramics, cosmetics, toners and paint.  Mr. Coulter received the first of his 82 patents in 1953 and started his company, Coulter Corporation.  The company grew to become the world leader in cellular analysis equipment, reagents and service.  It remained private until purchased by Beckman Instruments in 1997.  The Wallace H. Coulter Foundation was created in 1998 to continue his life-long pursuits.