1987 Outstanding Contributions in Education
John A. Lott will receive the 17th the Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine (formerly AACC) Award for Outstanding Contributions in Education. The award is sponsored by SmithKline Bio-Science Laboratories.
John A. Lott, 50, came to the United States shortly after World War II with his mother and three sibs. The family had spent the war years in Germany and had endured the dangers of wartime bombing of their home town and the post-war shortages of everything. Lott grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and graduated magna cum lauda from Rutgers University College of Pharmacy in 1959. After working as a pharmacist and for Ciba Pharmaceutical Co. in Summit, NJ, he decided to go on to graduate school; Lott completed his M.S. in pharmaceutical chemistry in 1961, also from Rutgers in Newark, NJ, and then transferred to the main campus of Rutgers in New Brunswick, NJ. There he completed a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry in 1965 under the late William Rieman’s direction. The Lotts have one son, Christopher.
John Lott has had a long career in teaching, beginning with an instructorship at Rutgers from 1964 to 1965 and then as assistant professor at the University of Michigan from 1965 to 1968. In 1968, he was invited by Dr. H.-D. Gruemer to join the clinical chemistry faculty in the Department of Pathology of The Ohio State University. Lott rose through the ranks at OSU, being appointed associate professor in 1972 and professor in 1979. He has had a long-standing interest in graduate education and has been chairman of the graduate-education committee at OSU since 1969, probably a record tenure. His teaching covers a wide range of topics: analytical chemistry, clinical chemistry, instrumentation, laboratory management, computer programming, and electronics.
Lott is a prolific writer; to date he has nearly 100 publications, including two books and many chapters in books. A good deal of the work has been on clinical enzymology, particularly on the clinical significance of creatine kinase and its isoenzymes. He has had about $180 000 in grant support since 1981.
Probably the source of the greatest visibility for John Lott has been his many speaking engagements and workshops. He is a regular at the the Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine (ADLM) national meetings, having presented his “Diagnostic Enzymology” workshop every year since 1981. Lott has taken his enzymology workshop on the road, and has presented it in Singapore and parts in Adelaide, Australia. Future presentations include Hanover, Germany, and Hong Kong. In 1979, he and the late George F. Grannis received a grant from the CDC to carry out continuing laboratory education in five Ohio cities with the goal of improving laboratory performance. This well-received series of programs, known as “Operation Catalyst,” had well over 3000 person-days of attendance.
Lott’s service activities at Ohio State also include being director of the Outpatient Clinic Laboratory, associate director of the Clinical Chemistry Laboratory, and service on many committees of the College and University. He has served on the Chemistry Resource Committee of the College of American Pathologists since 1980 and has been on the board of editors of Clinical Chemistry since 1981. Lott was chairman of the Ohio Valley Section of the ADLM in 1979 and served as president of the National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry in 1981–1982. He is presently on the Career Education Committee of ADLM.
Honors include The Outstanding Graduate of the College of Pharmacy, 1959; the B.J. Katchman Award from the Ohio Valley Section of the ADLM, 1979; the Presidential Recognition Award of the NACB, 1983; and the Alumni Distinguished Teaching Award of The Ohio State University, 1987.