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 It may contain other out-of-date information as well.
1996 The Johnson & Johnson Clinical Diagnostics Lectureship
Samuel Meites, PhD was honored with the AACC 1996 Johnson & Johnson Clinical Diagnostics Lectureship.
1990 Outstanding Contributions to Clinical Chemistry
Samuel Meites will receive the 39th annual AACC Award for Outstanding Contributions to Clinical Chemistry. The award is sponsored by Miles, Inc., Diagnostics Division, manufacturer of Ames and Technicon products.
Born in St. Joseph, MO, Dr. Meites received an A.B. in botany (plant physiology) and chemistry from the University of Missouri in 1942. He was introduced to clinical chemistry in the military, where he served as a medical laboratory officer from 1942 to 1946. After a year in graduate school at the University of Denver, Dr. Meites earned a doctorate in agricultural biochemistry from Ohio State University in 1950. He is married to Lois Maranville of Shenandoah, IA; they have one son and three grandchildren.
Dr. Meites is Professor of Pediatrics at Ohio State University College of Medicine and head of Clinical Chemistry at Children’s Hospital of Columbus, Ohio, where he has worked since 1954. He has achieved international recognition for the standardization of skin-puncture techniques in neonates, for clarifying the pitfalls associated with bilirubin methodology, and for establishing reference values for clinical chemistry analytes in children. Dr. Meites has published extensively on blood-collection techniques in neonates and infants and has developed methods for measuring bilirubin in children. Probably best known for his books, Dr. Meites has edited three editions of the pioneer work, Pediatric Clinical Chemistry, Reference (Normal) Values, the only book containing a comprehensive list of clinical chemistry laboratory values for children. This book is used as a reference source by pediatricians, clinical chemists, and clinical pathologists. Dr. Meites was co-editor with Willard R. Faulkner of Selected Methods for the Small Clinical Chemistry Laboratory (1982); he also edited Volume 5 of the AACC's Standard Methods of Clinical Chemistry series. He considers his most memorable work the biography, Otto Folin—America’s First Clinical Biochemist.
In addition to five books, Dr. Meites has written more than 90 papers. His research has focused mainly on three areas: clinical microchemistry, with a particular series on bilirubin analysis; blood collection in children; and the gathering and collation of pediatric reference values. His most recent work is on determining optimal sites and depths for skin puncture of the infant in an effort to promote greater safety in that practice.
Dr. Meites has served the profession of clinical chemistry for 40 years and has been an enthusiastic member of the AACC since 1956. He is a founding member of the Ohio Valley Section and has served in its principal offices. For six consecutive years he chaired a Regional Conference on Clinical Chemistry and served as the AACC national secretary from 1975 to 1977. Active in the affairs of AACC, Dr. Meites has concentrated his efforts on activating the Association’s committees, establishing a council newsletter, and defining the professional role of the clinical chemist in a hospital. Dr. Meites played an important role in developing the Association’s Research Endowment Fund. For these services, he received the AACC Fisher Award for outstanding contributions through service to the profession of clinical chemistry in 1981 and the Ohio Valley Section’s first B.J. Katchman Award in 1971. Though he has chaired nine committees, he is proudest of his role as chairman of the Archives Committee. With Dr. Wendell Caraway, he has established an awareness among clinical chemists, particularly in the AACC , of the history of clinical chemistry. His biography of Otto Folin was an outgrowth of his work on this committee.
Dr. Meites emphasizes that throughout his career as a clinical chemist, his professional and research activities were meant to enhance daily service to pediatric patients in a children’s hospital. Because aging begins at birth or earlier, his current interest is to develop with Dr. Faulkner a much needed book on reference values in elderly people.
1981 Outstanding Contributions through Service to the Profession of Clinical Chemistry
Samuel Meites will receive the 16th AACC Award for Outstanding Contributions through Service to Clinical Chemistry as a Profession, sponsored by the Fisher Scientific Co.
Dr. Meites was born in St. Joseph, Missouri, January 1921, where he grew up and was educated through junior college (1940). After receiving the A.B. degree (1942) in botany and chemistry from the University of Missouri, he was a medical laboratory technician (1942–44) and officer (1944–46) in the U.S. Army Medical Dept., in several hospitals in the U.S. After a year’s “refresher” course at the University of Denver in 1946–47, he then went to The Ohio State University, obtaining his doctorate in biochemistry in 1950.
He has been a clinical chemist since 1950. Except for the first three years of his career (VA Hospital, Poplar Bluff, MO, 1950–52; Toledo Hospital, Toledo, OH, 1953), he has served continually as director of the clinical chemistry laboratory of the Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, and has attained the rank of professor in both the Department of Pediatrics and the Department of Pathology, Ohio State University College of Medicine.
His scientific and professional careers have been intimately linked with the AACC, which Meites joined in 1956. He helped promote (1958) and then to found the Ohio Valley Section (1961), and was its secretary-treasurer (1965–68), chairman-elect (1969), and chairman (1970). He edited the section’s newsletter from 1962–71, and served on and chaired several committees. He organized and annually chaired a mini-national meeting, the Regional Conference on Clinical Chemistry, 1965–70. He was on the executive committee, and introduced as well as established workshops for the 24th national meeting of AACC, in 1972, sponsored by the section. In 1971, he was the first recipient of the Bernard J. Katchman Award for outstanding services to the Section.
Dr. Meites has served—and continues to serve—the AACC in many posts. He was a member of the Committee on Nominations, 1965, 1967, and twice its chairman, 1970, 1971; chairman, Public Relations, 1966–70; chairman, History, 1979 to date; member, Pediatric Clinical Chemistry, 1973 to date; Employment and Personnel, 1978–1980; Endowment Fund for Clinical Chemistry Research, 1978 to date. He is now on the Board of Editors of Selected Methods, on the Advisory Committee for Clinical Chemistry News, and is currently a Councilor from the Ohio Valley Section. He was AACC National Secretary, 1975–77, entailing work on the Executive Committee, Board of Directors, Committee on Finance, and Council.
In the scientific arena, Meites has served the AACC as Editor-in-Chief, Vol. 5, Standard Methods of Clinical Chemistry (1965), of two compilations (1974–75) followed by the first (1977) and second (1981) editions of Pediatric Clinical Chemistry, and is co-editor, with Willard R. Faulkner, of the forthcoming (1982) text, Selected Methods for the Small Clinical Chemistry Laboratory. Also, with Faulkner, he wrote the book, Manual of Practical Micro and General Procedures in Clinical Chemistry (C. C Thomas, 1962).
Meites has emphasized pediatric clinical chemistry in his research, and has published about 70 papers, mostly on analytical methods, microchemistry, sample quality, and age-related reference values.
He recently served on the organizing committee for the 1st International Congress of Pediatric Laboratory Medicine, held in Jerusalem, in 1980, and co-chaired its symposium on reference values. Of recent interest to him are studies quantitating interferences in skin-puncture-derived blood samples, and erythrocyte enzyme values.